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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

CIVILIAN

Problems of Readjustment

BY

GEORGE K. PRATT, M.D.
Psychiatric Examiner, U.S. Armed Forces, Induction Center,
New Haven, Connecticut; formerly Assistant Clinical
Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine,

Yale University

Foreword by

GEORGE 8S. STEVENSON, M.D.
Medical Director, The National Committee for
Mental Hygiene

MY Tilney es ook OPS.
MC GRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC.
New York London

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

Copyright, 1944, by the McGraw-Hitt Boox Company, Inc.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

This book is produced in full compliance
with the government's regulations for con-
serving paper and other essential materials.

PUBLISHED BY WHITTLESEY HOUSE
A division of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATED TO

My son Cpl. Rodney G. Pratt who is
with the Army Signal Corps overseas

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ud
4

CONTENTS

Foreword
. Introduction

. What Equipment Did the New Soldier Take
with Him?

. What Did Military Service Do to the Former
Civilian?

. How the Army Prevents Strains of Adjustment
Soldiers with Psychiatric Disabilities

. The First Weeks at Home

. Going Back to Work

. Getting Reacquainted with the Family

Appendix: Community Services for Veterans

148

I

FOREWORD

HE rising value of human life in America is one

of the signs of our advancing culture. The evi-

dence of its existence is all about us and it needs

no argument. But the value of human living as contrasted

with human life is not yet on a sound standard, although

public health, education, theology, medicine, and social work

have been expanding their interests in morbidity, mortality,

and casualties to encompass the more positive satisfying,

effective, and productive living. Their services are more and

more measured by how well their beneficiaries live instead of
by patterns of action born of tradition or authority.

During the depression of 1929 man-days were cheap, and,
paradoxically, it has taken a period of apparent inhumanity,
of war, to bring home to us the value of human living as
expressed by man power. But still this is too often seen as
a value to a society or nation, an imaginary being transcend-
ing its members, rather than to and through them exclusively.
Yet it is not strange that out of a way of life and a political
system known as democracy should come, through whatever
portal, a welcome concern for the value of people. If man 1s,
worth salvaging he is worth it for himself. No other justifica-
tion is needed. He was just as needful of satisfactions in 1932

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FOREWORD

as in 1942. Shall the services that surround him now be
allowed to decline? We think not. Out of this materialistic,
inhumanitarian, and entirely opportunistic impulse has come
a deeply humanitarian and farsighted program. The rehabili-
tation of returning veterans will save us money, pangs of
guilt, demagoguery, crime, poverty-stricken families, and dis-
ease, and yet without these savings it would be justified if it
gave the veteran his appropriate opportunity in our national
life and put the seal of approval on a national policy of
respect for the importance of the individual.

An attempt is made in the pages that follow to show how
reasonable are the quandaries of the veteran, considering what
he has been through and how reasonable it is that we should
not throw the whole burden of finding his way upon shoul-
ders that are new to this type of responsibility, nor take from
those shoulders loads that they can carry. It is not a matter of
rewarding a man for work well done. Veterans are not asking
that, although they are not beyond enticement into it. The
veteran needs retooling. It is retooling for effective civilian
living just as he was previously retooled for effective military
living. Many gratuities, such as pensions, may be thrown to
him that will have an opposite effect. For example, the GI
Bill of Rights—in many respects an admirable measure—is
very much a bill of rewards. Among the provisions, it “re- |
wards” the deserter, the criminal, the fraudulently enlisted,
and the undesirable character with “rights” that will fre-
quently contribute to his failure. For the well balanced the
reward becomes an incentive to action. For others it may
become an incentive to dependence. Bonuses of a new style;
are needed—bonuses that “pay the debt of disability in the |
currency of opportunity.” Such bonuses are as much harder’

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FOREWORD

to administer as they are more effective and are correspond-
ingly easy to mishandle. They require biological and psychiat-
ric as well as political thinking, for to be effective they must ~
enhance life first of all, rather than prestige and power. Per-
haps the need is summed up in the words “social statesman-
ship.”

What is done wisely or unwisely for the veteran will be a
sign and measure of our times and a forecast of our future.
_The veteran is humanity of the moment. Tomorrow he will
be a part of our rural, town, and city life again and a heavy
participant in our government. What we do for him will tell
us and him where we stand in the 1940’s. It will give him
and us the cue for plans ahead. It will set the pace for services
and considerations for our whole population. If we act intelli-
gently now, we do so for many years to come.

_ This is a task for our whole public. Nothing could do more
to strengthen democracy than universal participation in
meeting this kind of reality with the same energy and time
as we applied to air-raid precautions. But the task is to no
small degree technical, and, if sound processes are to be
effected, processes that will result in success of this broad
effort rather than the disillusionment that follows superficial
dabbling, a professional personnel well selected and trained
is essential. It is a task as well for a variety of professions and
trades. The needs of the veteran will most frequently be ~
nothing more than a friendly, loving, receptive public ready
to give the veteran the opportunity to resume civilian life.
In many instances there will be needs for more specialized
help, medical for the disabled, occupational guidance for the
young and handicapped, social services for the shattered
family, educational service for those requiring retraining or
nee

FOREWORD

continuance of plans, and financial help for a variety of cir-
cumstances. How can those who are able to be of service
become known to the veteran who needs the service? How
can he be encouraged to use the service and still to use to
the utmost his own resources? How can new services be de-
veloped to meet his needs? How can they be continually
tested to measure their value and effectiveness? These are the
practical questions whose answers in large part are still ahead
of us if we have the soundness and humility that are essential
to progress. The pages that follow give the spirit and direc-
tion for the next years wherewith to transform into practical
social action a principle that we have fought to establish as
our political safeguard.

—Georce S. Stevenson, M.D.
Medical Director, |
The National Committee for Mental Hygiene

path

INTRODUCTION

Ts book deals with some of the problems of
adjusting to family and community life faced by
the returned soldier or sailor. Since the war is
not ended as the book is written virtually all of the men it
concerns up to date have been discharged from military serv-
ice because of some type of handicap, either physical or
psychological. Nevertheless, many of the problems of com-
munity adjustment faced by discharged men are identical
with the problems to be faced by millions of others who will
be demobilized at the close of the war. Thus, the book may
prove helpful in understanding the difficulties of adaptation
to civilian life of both groups.

It is addressed primarily to the families, friends, and pro-
spective employers of ail returned servicemen, and its pur-
pose is to create in these families and others both a point
of view and an atmosphere. The point of view is one of ma- -
ture, not mawkish, sympathy. The atmosphere, it-is hoped,
may become one of understanding and sturdy support, in
which the man in whom they are interested may be helped.

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SOLDIER. TO CIVILIAN

to help himself in establishing on his return home ways of
living that will prove satisfying to him and effective for good
citizenship. But there are grave dangers to the man himself
no less than to the future of the nation as a whole if families
and others fail to understand his problems and thereby fail
to help him achieve a normal civilian life. Suppose we see
how one family with excellent intentions hindered rather
than helped their son in his efforts to adjust after returning
home.

The Arthur Stones * were typical New England citizens
properly proud of their twenty-year-old son Arthur, Jr., who
had been with a tank corps outfit in Tunisia, at Salerno,
and in Anzio. His previous good luck deserted him in the
battle for Florence, when vicious pieces of mortar frag-
ments sliced across his neck and face and for a time
rendered him unconscious.

After months in a succession of hospitals, where he re-
ceived the most highly skilled medical attention any hu-
man being could hope for, Arthur was shipped back to
the States and given a discharge. He really was feeling
pretty hale and hearty by this time and had just about
conquered his first feelings of sick despair when he saw his
facial disfigurement in the mirror. The psychiatrist at the
last convalescent hospital had talked quite a bit to Arthur
about the psychological effects of his injuries, and the boy
consequently had lost most of his oversensitiveness and
morbid preoccupation with them. Now there were whole
days at a time when he never thought any longer about
his face, and he rapidly found himself on the road to think-

1 All names of persons as used in case-histories in this book are fictitious.

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

ing of himself as not different from anyone else. He was
excited and happy at prospects of returning home and
already had made dozens of plans about what he would do
when he got back.

As Arthur stepped from the train Mother, Dad, and
young brother Eddie waved a greeting and rushed toward
him. His face broke into what he meant for a grin of
pleasure but actually it was a twisted, grotesque grimace
from severed muscles that would not properly behave. Al-
though the boy had written them a general account of his
wounds Mr. and Mrs. Stone weren’t prepared for this, and
instinctively they recoiled at what they saw. Their shock
was not concealed, and Arthur’s heightened sensitivity
caused him to read revulsion into it. But the Stones quickly
recovered. With nervous, high-pitched chatter to cover
their agitation they took Arthur home.

To the returned soldier the next few weeks were almost
worse than the battlefield. Having made gains toward
thinking of himself as a fairly normal individual and want-
ing others to treat him as one he found the forced joviality
of the family and their artificial Pollyanna-like treatment
both unrealistic and isritating. It annoyed him beyond
words to have Mother tiptoe about the house, shushing
everyone ,who talked loudly, to have her fuss over him
and to see the tears of silent pity course down her cheeks
as she begged him to “rest” on the couch in the living
room. He felt like screaming when he overheard snatches
of muted telephone conversations behind closed doors with
repeated references to “poor Arthur.” He strove manfully
to stifle his exasperation when his mother insisted on his

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

reciting over and over again the intimate details of his
wounding; how it happened; did it hurt much; did he lose
quantities of blood; were the doctors and nurses good to
him; how did it feel to be under enemy fire; was he fright-
ened; did he think to pray, etc., etc., until her well-meaning
interrogations into these personal matters hurt worse than
the surgeon’s probing for embedded mortar fragments. To
Arthur these things were private; not even a mother had a
tight to drag them out into the open. Moreover, she looked
hurt when he answered some of her questions with “I don’t
remember.” Mrs. Stone thought her son was deliberately
trying to conceal horrors from her. She didn’t know that
Arthur’s “I don’t remember” was the plain truth; that he
had been temporarily knocked unconscious and that in
addition he—like thousands of other soldiers in combat—
automatically developed a protective amnesia or loss of
memory to blot out the more ghastly part of his experience.
His insistence that he failed to remember was not a de-
liberate white lie to spare her feelings. He honestly didn’t
recall many of the details into which she probed.

Even Dad with all his good intentions was scarcely less
irritating. He had been in the Argonne in World War I,
and his prestige as the sole military expert of the family
had been unchallenged until this son of his likewise
achieved the status of a veteran. Mr. Stone loved his son
dearly but at the same time he now felt threatened by
Arthur’s competition. And so it happened that each time
Arthur recounted some incident of the battlefield his father
found it necessary to match it with an incident of his own,
always contriving to make his experience a little more :ex-
citing. At first Arthur didn’t mind, but as Dad reminisced

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

incessantly the boy grew irked. After all, his father had had
his day; Arthur was the returning hero now, and he didn’t
relish being relegated once more to the position of second
fiddle. Then, too, there were the arguments on topics
about which Arthur held some positive ideas of his own.
Mr. Stone, for instance, hadn’t liked sergeants in his war,
and he reviled them bitterly, endeavoring to get his son
to agree with him. But Sergeant Donovan had been
Arthur’s best friend; indeed, he was the one who dragged
the boy to shelter when he had been hit, and Arthur
couldn’t see things his father’s way. The arguments waxed
furiously and spread to other topics until both were angry
and upset. Mr. Stone didn’t know about Sergeant Dono-
van, and as his son grew more hostile the father’s argu-
ments became more heated and repetitious.

The thing that infuriated the returned soldier most of
all, however, was his parents’ resumption of the old atti-
tude, “Mother and Dad know best,” used so lovingly but
firmly all during his boyhood. Up to his entrance into the
army “Mother and Dad know best” had been the cus-
tomary and clinching restraining force on those adolescent
plans with which they disagreed. On his return Mr. and
Mrs. Stone failed to realize that this soldier son of theirs
was little Arthur no longer. They couldn’t realize that he
had become accustomed to making and executing his own
plans for two years and that sometimes his very life had
depended on their soundness. On his return home it was
natural but unwise for his parents to slip into the old habit
of countering his ideas with this phrase, but to Arthur it
grew increasingly irritating. When he announced that he
was going down to the corner drugstore to hunt up some

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SOLDIER? TO: CIVILIAN

of the old crowd, and when Mother gently suggested he
had better stay home on the couch and rest, the ensuing
argument ended as of yore with “But we know best, dear.” —
When Arthur, who had figured out the situation for him-
self, told the family that he wasn’t going to try to get his
old. job back but seek another, the same parental words
were invoked in opposition.

All in all, Arthur began to feel that his homecoming was
a letdown. Day by day and week by week the atmosphere
at home created by the family insidiously sapped the desire
for independence and normality of the returned soldier.
He had reached home after bitter struggles within himself,
beginning to feel sturdy and of a likeness with others, full
of fresh young plans for himself, invigorated and enthusi-
astic. But the family treated him not only like an invalid
from whom little should be expected, but as the same
happy-go-lucky kid he was before the war; as one who
didn’t know his own mind and whose youthful enthusiasms
were to be received with amused tolerance but no serious-
ness. Gradually, his desire for independence weakened.
Gradually, he began to take over into himself their con-
cept of him as an invalid, and gradually he slipped back
imperceptibly into his former status of “little Arthur” until
his new-found inner urgings for a normal place in the
world were stifled and abandoned.

This family approached their son’s problems harmfully,
although they did not mean to, because they failed to
understand what it was he wanted on his return and how
he felt about matters that to him were vitally important.
As a result his return to a successful civilian adjustment
was needlessly impeded.
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SOLDIER) Or GIVI LIAN

The soldier home from the wars will seem a curious bundle
of contradictions to his family. In some areas of his life mili-
tary experience will have matured him. In others he will ap-
pear downright childish. He will want freedom from military
discipline and at the same time feel bewildered to know what
to do with his new civilian liberty. He will express a wish for
social activities and yet feel uneasy when these are provided.
He will talk much of craving to settle down into humdrum
routine and security and yet in a few weeks yearn restlessly
for change and to be once more on the go. Most of all how-
ever, the returned soldier will be different—different in hun-
dreds of little ways from the man his family knew before he
went away; different in his outlook on life; different in his
manner of doing things; different in his sense of values;
different in his likes and dislikes. In brief, he is apt to seem
for a time almost a stranger to his puzzled family.

It is at this point that he needs understanding, but even
more he needs to come back to a home atmosphere, a com-
munity atmosphere, a job atmosphere that will interpose no
obstacles to his task of refinding himself, an atmosphere that
will accept him for what he is and permit him to work out
his own problems in his own way. You and I may honestly
believe that we know what is best for him and we may try
lovingly to shape him into a mold of our selection, but he
is likely to have other ideas. Some of his ideas will prove
sound, others not. Some will meet our approval, but others
may disturb us. The point is that he will have to be permitted
to embark on one of the most exciting—and sometimes most
dangerous—of all life’s adventures: trial and error in living. In
so doing he is bound now and then to come a cropper in
which he, and possibly others, too, will be hurt. But you and

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

I cannot (or at least we should not) wholly prevent this. He
must learn for himself, and if in the process he stubs his toe
let us keep discreet silence and allow him to chalk up the
injury to experience.

This trial-and-error process can be shortened and its errors
made less painful if we can provide the returned soldier with
the climate of understanding mentioned above. In such a
climate he will find freedom to grow in maturity, although
perhaps after his own fashion; he will come to sense in us
a quality of true understanding and steadfastness on which
he can depend, even at those times when his inner confusion
and illogical resentments are greatest. He will derive a sense
of support from his intuitive realization that we do, after all,
have comprehension of the struggles he is going through in-
side himself and that while we may not always approve of
what he does, yet we neither condemn nor reject him for
doing it. Such an atmosphere enveloping him lovingly, pa-
tiently, steadily week after week will prove a sheet anchor for
him to tie to until he gets his bearings and will do more than
anything else to help him bridge the transition from soldier
to civilian. |

So, then, if the reader is disappointed that this book con-
tains few neatly packaged rules for dealing with the returned
soldier, let him realize that its chief purpose_is to help in
bringing about an atmosphere of understanding that will
prove infinitely more constructive than reliance on any set
of instructions. Instructions in living are pretty futile, any-
way. No two persons ever react precisely the same to similar
situations, and what is good advice for one person may turn
out to be the worst possible advice for another. Overcoming
difficulties in adjusting to people and the world around us is

SOLDIER\ TO’ CIVILIAN

one of the major necessities in the lives of us all. It is normal
to have to face problems of adjustment and it is equally nor-
mal to find some of them difficult to face. In this respect the
returned soldier is not different from the rest of us, except
that his problems of adjustment, because of his military expe-
riences, take on a somewhat different coloring from ours or
possess a special intensity. In his struggles to adapt himself
to civilian living you and I can help if we try to learn a new
language; i.e., the language of behavior. This is not a language
of the spoken word nor of the written one. Instead, it is a
language that helps us to understand why people act as they
do through understanding the meaning (often a hidden
meaning) of their behavior.

_ Why, for example, does one ex-soldier keep a grim-lipped
silence and refuse to talk about his war experiences, while
another embarrasses his family with his ceaseless loquacity
on this subject? What is another trying awkwardly to tell us
through his actions when he restlessly throws up one good
job after another and won’t settle down? What is the mean-
ing of the behavior of a third when he soon becomes snappish
toward the mother or wife he idealized while overseas? Why
does the formerly self-sufficient and self-confident soldier now
act fearful, timid, and unsure? What disguised cry for help
is still another trying to send us when he avoids former
friends and clings solely with almost a desperate tenacity to
buddies and other servicemen? And why is it that yet another
refuses to seek a job because he cannot be convinced that his
symptoms of palpitation, shortness of breath, and tiredness
on exertion do not come from “heart disease” despite the
assurances of eminent specialists that his heart is sound? The
various behaviors of these men are not due to sheer cussed-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

ness or perversity. They have meaning and significance. These
men are trying to tell us who care for them that they feel
confused, frightened, anxious, but their message is conveyed
in actions rather than in the words they cannot find. It is up
to us, then, if we are to be of genuine help, to fathom the
meaning of these actions and make our own reactions con-
structive.

Should we succeed in mastering this language of behavior
two results will accrue: first, we shall be enabled to view the
man in whom we are interested as of a sameness with our-
selves, as another human being groping in the face of difh-
culty to find ways of reconciling his ambitions, cravings, need
for security, and his deep-seated instincts with the necessity
for socially effective and acceptable living; and secondly, the
atmosphere of understanding so much talked about in pre-
ceding paragraphs automatically will be created. In this event,
the returned soldier no longer will seem a stranger, for we
shall be able to penetrate behind his facade of “strangeness”
and in having its meaning revealed to us shall see much of
ourselves. This is why, should we fail to acquire facility in
using this “language,” it will be hurtful to him if we continue
to envisage him as a strange being set apart from the rest of
us by reason of his military experiences or as one to be ab-
solved from the responsibilities of ordinary adult existence.
After all, this is a people’s war, and the soldier in our democ-
racy is a cross section representative of us all. The current of
our American life flows in and through him. His problems
of adjustment after his military service are not mysterious
or impossible to fathom, but merely variations or exaggera-
tions of our own. We can put ourselves in his place and
understand how he feels. We can create for him a climate

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

of comprehension that will foster self-reliance and leave him
free to come to grips successfully with his task. To assist us
all in achieving these goals is the reason for this book.

What are some of the problems of adjusting back to
civilian life of the returned soldier? To answer this it will
help if first we try to visualize what kind of a person this
man was before he became a soldier. Here are the facts. ‘The
armed forces of the United States of America in this World
War II number approximately eleven million persons. Be-
cause, as stated above, this is a people’s war, these eleven
million have been drawn from literally all walks of life, and
the army became a civilian rather than a professional army.
Professional fighting was not the prewar trade of these
civilians, and they knew little of it. They had entered the
armed forces, some by enlistment but most by a process of
enforced selective service. Some came from parents born in
Naples or Prague or Copenhagen, while the parents of others
came from Boston’s Beacon Street. Some had been me-
chanics and others clerks; some had taught school while
others had herded sheep on Western ranges. Some were
divinity students and others gangsters. Business executives
found themselves barracks mates with union organizers, and
farmers from Vermont’s boulder-studded fields drilled along-
side city slickers from Broadway. But they had one character-
istic in common: none of them knew about war or its
methods.

Not only was this civilian army made up of men from
different vocations, but the widest possible differences were
to be found in their personalities and temperaments. Some
were naturally stolid and phlegmatic, while others were

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

equally naturally quick and excitable. Some invariably were
sober and serious, while others had always been frivolous or
scatterbrained. Some had learned to become responsible and
teliable, while others had developed habits of irresponsibility
and instability. Some grew up passively accepting authority
while others passionately hated it. Some were emotionally
mature, while many others, normally developed in physique
and intelligence, still were children in their feelings. Some
remained tied to their mothers while others had long before
reached man’s estate. :

- Moreover, the attitudes of these eleven million men va-
tied enormously about the necessity for going to war. Some
adolescents (of all physical ages and craving excitement)
were fairly “rarin’ to go,” while some older men with family
responsibilities were plunged into a conflict of loyalties be-
tween love of country on the one hand and love for children,
wives, or mothers, on the other. Some men other than con-
scientious objectors held reasoned scruples about the wisdom
of war as a solution for any national problem, while others
brazenly admitted they didn’t give a damn about the war;
they wanted only to be left alone in their accustomed sur-
roundings. Some welcomed entrance into the army as a
means of escaping from burdensome home obligations, while
a few with perhaps a criminal record behind them hastened
eagerly to induction as a lesser evil than a threatened jail sen-
tence. But eager, resentful, conflicted, or indifferent, into
military life they all went to have their varying attitudes and
temperaments hammered into a common pattern of military
usefulness. |
_ These are the men, or in another sense this is a composite
of the man, who went to war, met a variety of strange experi-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN
ences, either adjusted eventually to his new environs or failed
to adjust (i.e., developed a “psychiatric” handicap), and now
is back home again. What is he faced with? How does he
feel about it? What are his problems of adjustment to civilian
life? oe :

First, if he has been in the service any length of time, the
problem of functioning on his own once more, unsupported
by the group of which he had become a welded part; second,
the problem of adjusting to the disillusionment of discover-
ing that the folks back home are just humans after all, and
not the idyllic creatures his nostalgic-ridden mind had en-
visioned in a foxhole in Normandy; third, his conviction that
no one who had not been “over there” possibly could under-
stand how he feels about things, with resulting loneliness, in-
security, and a sense of isolation—these are a few of the
broad, general problems of adjustment the returned soldier
has to face. In addition, however, there are a host of lesser,
if more urgent, ones that besiege him. What to do about a
job? Shall he go back to the old one or try another? If he has
been discharged before the war was ended, perhaps for some
psychiatric difficulty that shows no physical wounds, how
shall he save his face and explain it? In that case, will he have
to start fresh in some town where he was not previously
known, or brazen it out with old friends by substituting some
fictitious but plausible physical reason for his discharge, like
flat feet or a heart condition? What will he do about the
problem of realizing that his hasty war marriage was a well-
meant mistake and that he and the bride he never really got
to know are not suited for the long pull together? If he had
been married for some years previously and his wife went to
work on his departure, how will he deal with her reluctance

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to give up an outlet that she has come to enjoy? If she had
gone back to live with her mother, will he have a time prying
her loose from the in-laws? If he has become physically or
psychologically disabled in part, how much will he give in to
the temptation of becoming wholly dependent and being
taken care of without effort on his part?

These are but a fraction of the multitudinous problems of
adjustment faced not alone by the discharged soldier, but by
all soldiers, sick or well, mature or immature. They are not
chimerical problems but very real and some of them very
painful to solve. But solved they must be, in one way or
another, if lives are to be salvaged for effective living and if
postwar destinies are to be realized.

Although this book deals with the adjustment problems
of all returned servicemen—the demobilized of the future as
well as the discharged of the present—it would fail of its
purpose if it did not give special attention to some of the
problems of adjustment of those men who are separated from
military service because of what are called “psychiatric”
reasons. Contrary to wide public opinion, the term “psychiat-
ric’ is not a synonym for “insane.” In its military usage “‘psy-
chiatric” usually merely designates a departure from average
personality traits or temperament, or it is a label perhaps for
certain attitudes, or for symptoms of functional illness, that
render a soldier unsuitable for military service. ‘The term
“military service” purposely is stressed since a large number of
men discharged from the army or navy because of psychiatric
reasons were able, and will continue to be able, to function
in a civilian environment. Thus, all it means as used in war-
time is that by reason of some disorder of personality a given
man cannot exercise those qualities that are essential in the

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peculiar trade of fighting a war. In any other trade, in any
other environment except a military one, he would doubtless
be an efficient member of the community. More detailed ex-
planation of what a psychiatric handicap is will be found in a
subsequent chapter of this book. In the meantime, however,
the magnitude of the problem of adjustment of those soldiers
who were discharged for psychiatric reasons is so great and
the sum total of the unhappiness they go through before
achieving adjustment, as well as the puzzlement they cause
their families and friends, is so staggering that some factual
information may give the reader a background against which
he can better understand the personal as well as the com-
munity aspects of the situation.

As of September, 1944, approximately one and:a half mil-
lion men have been discharged from military service since
Pearl Harbor. Some were separated from service because of
overage reasons; others for dependency reasons, and some
were dishonorably discharged after court-martial. ‘The re-
mainder have been “medical” discharges, either for physical
or mental causes. Nearly one half, i.e., 45 per cent, of. all
medical discharges from the armed forces are for some psy-
chiatric reason. Already more than 300,000 men have been
discharged for psychiatric conditions and about 30,000 more
are being discharged each month. In addition to these, an-
other million and a quarter men (about 13 per cent of all
those between eighteen and thirty-eight years of age coming
up for induction board examinations) have been rejected by
induction board examiners as manifesting some mental or
emotional condition (a psychiatric condition) that made
them unsuitable for military service. Among these psychiatri-
cally discharged and rejected groups comparatively few of the

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“mental or emotional conditions discovered could be classified
as “insanity.” The overwhelming percentage of them fell
under the technical heading of “‘psychoneurosis,” which is an
emotional disorder, to be sure, but in intensity and often in
nature far from insanity. Many of them had been subtly
predisposed toward instability of some kind years before war
was declared, but some others with basically sturdy person-
alities had instability thrust upon them by the strains of
combat under which the healthiest endowment could break
down.

_ Psychiatric breakdowns are not new or peculiar to the
present war. World War I, with its modest four million men
in contrast to the eleven million of this one, found mental
and emotional disorders (they were called “shell shock” in
those days) taking a more terrific toll of American troops
than enemy bullets. From the United States Veterans Ad-
ministration we learn that:

1. In the thirty-three months from April 1, 1917, to De-
cember 31, 1919, there were 97,657 men with psychiatric dis-
orders admitted to various military hospitals, and there were
probably as many more with milder degrees of disability who
were not hospitalized.

Z. Even at the time of Pearl Harbor over half of all the
patients in veterans’ hospitals had psychiatric disorders, the
overwhelming majority of which represent mental casualties
from the last war. |

3. It is estimated that every psychiatric casualty will cost
the government (i.e., the taxpayer) $30,000.

4. In fourteen years the government (i.e., the taxpayer
again) has spent one billion dollars in caring for these psychi-
atric patients and in compensation for the varying degrees of

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disability they present. In this connection it has been found
that psychiatric casualties are sixteen times more likely to re-_
sult in permanent disabilities than other kinds of illness.

If this is the situation with regard to World. War I, we can
glimpse at least the outline of what the situation already is
threatening to become in World War II, with its nearly three
times as many men involved. This is why no book on the
problems of adjustment of returning servicemen can over-
look the special problems of a group so huge that it consti-
tutes almost half of all men discharged for medical reasons.

If we are to help the returned soldier in whom we are
interested to deal wisely with his problems of adjustment on
coming home, we should logically understand some of the
things that happened to him while he was away. We should
understand, for example, what military life meant to him,
what it did to him, how military authorities endeavored to
strengthen him against the strains of his new life, and how
also they tried to lessen these strains.

It may strike readers as strange or unnecessary to go back
so far in a person’s former life in order to understand his
present problems. But it is impossible to truly’comprehend
the returned serviceman as he is today and the reasons for
his attitudes unless we first see clearly what kind of a person
this man of ours was before he became a soldier or sailor and,
most of all, what equipment he took with him to be affected
for better or worse by the experiences that military life im-
posed on it. No two men took into the army with them ex-
actly the same equipments of temperament, personality, and
native endowment, and consequently no two of them met
the experiences—even identical experiences—of military life

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in identically the same way. ‘The same truism will hold good
when they come home. No two ex-servicemen are going to re-
- act in precisely the same manner to the problems of adjusting
to civilian life, and by a reverse process the equipments they
brought out of the army with them will prove a help or a
hindrance in making those adjustments. In the next chapter,
therefore, we have to commence our process of understand-
ing and helping the returned soldier to adjust to civilian life
by beginning at the beginning, 1.e., by discussing some of the
equipment with which he left home.

2

WHAT EQUIPMENT DID THE NEW
SOLDIER TAKE WITH HIM?

HEN the new soldier first reported at his
training camp or his boot camp or any other
kind of receiving station, he was issued some

equipment. This included a uniform, perhaps a rifle and an
ammunition belt, and some other purely military parapher-
nalia. However, long before he first reported for duty, life
had issued him some other equipment. This included a
healthy body and an assortment of psychological baggage. His
physical equipment must have been reasonably good, other-
wise he could not have passed through the rigorous screening
procedures given at the time of his induction board examina-
Hons. These examinations included minute attention to his
eyes, his ears, his heart, and other bodily organs, as well as
to the state of his emotional life and his personality. To be
sure, this screening process did not always function without
mistakes. The examinations at induction centers were usually
conducted by medical specialists of outstanding reputation.
Nevertheless, the numbers of men to be examined were so
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great and the time in which to undertake the examinations
was so limited (seldom more than three or four minutes for
each specialist) that errors occasionally were bound to occur.
Generally speaking, however, and with some inevitable excep-
tions, when the man in whom we are interested finally passed
his induction board medical examinations and was taken into
military service, he was likely to be a hand-picked person in
the very literal meaning of this phrase, and throughout his
entire military experience thereafter no human being on earth
received more or better attention from medical officers in
maintaining his physical efficiency at a high peak.

So much for the physical equipment which this man took
into service with him, but what about the psychological
equipment he also took with him? Psychological make-up was
less conspicuous than a soundly functioning body or lean,
hard muscles, but it was an equally important part of his total
equipment and played an even more vital role in helping him
to make adjustments to the multitudinous experiences of
military life. Fie
_ First among the man’s psychological apparatus was his
constitutional endowment. This does not mean so much the
things that his heredity conferred on him, such as the brown
hair of his father or the blue eyes of his mother, as it means
less tangible endowments, like his personal amount of aggres-—
siveness or passivity, his capacity to resist strains and fatigue,
whether physical or mental, and the like. His intelligence, for
example, is one of many qualities that go to make up this
thing that we call constitutional endowment. When our man
was born into the world he was given an ability to develop
more or less intelligence. The amount of this ability, how-
ever, was predetermined or fixed in advance and so also, to

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a considerable extent, was his particular rate of intellectual
development. Perhaps our man was one of those persons who
naturally possess a rapid rate of intellectual development, but
it is equally possible that he might be one of those others in
whom this quality grows more slowly. However, if his early
training and his early experiences were propitious, the
chances are that by the time he reached twenty years of age
he also reached his maximum growth of native intelligence.
To be sure, he will continue to acquire training and experi-
ence for many years to come, which lead to greater efficiency
in life and to better judgment; but it is important to under-
stand that the original ability that helped him to profit by
training and experience will not go on increasing after he
reaches his maximum intellectual growth, which, as stated
before, is around twenty years of age. At the various induction
centers all over the country a man is acceptable for military
service if his intelligence, when figured on a mental age level,
is at least ten years. The chances are, of course, that it is
higher than this, but as democratic institutions our army and
navy utilize all grades of intelligence from border line feeble-
minded at one end of the scale to college graduates and Phi
Beta Kappas at the other.

* Another constitutional endowment included in our man’s
psychological make-up is his body-mind integration: i.e., his
degree of balanced functioning of his nervous system and of
the various organs affected by this system. ‘This nervous sys-
tem is the great coordinator. When it is in healthy running
order it causes all the different parts of the body to function
smoothly as a harmonious whole. Sometimes, however, when
a state of imbalance exists, the individual has a less-than-
average ability to resist strains and pressures such as excite-

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ment, fatigue, rapid changes in environment, etc. One of
many examples that could be used to illustrate this is found
in the man or woman who invariably gets carsick whenever
he rides on a train or in automobiles; another is the person
who on slight provocation under the influence of fear or even
of such simple things as changes in environment may sweat
profusely, experience palpitation of the heart, and have his
face and neck flush up to an uncomfortable extent. If these
things happen it may not mean that the person’s stomach or
heart is necessarily damaged, but merely that the function of
these organs is disturbed. In other words, it represents the
differences between a disease, or physical damage of an organ
of the body, and a disorder of the function of that organ. Not
infrequently these symptoms represent an instability of what
is called the “vasomotor system.” When, as a result possibly
of poor constitutional endowment, an individual has an ex-
ceptionally excitable vasomotor system that is easily thrown —
off balance, he tends to react to various experiences in ex-
treme degrees. The child or adult who habitually becomes
delirious and goes out of his head with every trivial fever or
rise in temperature may be an example of this, and we say
that his physiological integration is poor or unstable.

A man’s temperament is yet another aspect of his consti-
tutional endowment. His customary tendency to be phleg-
matic or excitable, to be outgoing and sociable or, oppositely,
to be seclusive and withdrawn, to have swings of mood from
elation to depression; to be habitually “touchy’’ and hyper-
sensitive and overserious in contrast to being easygoing or .
scatterbrained—all these qualities and many more go to make
up a person’s temperament, and, while they are susceptible
of being lessened or increased by the nature of the ‘experi-

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ences the person meets in life, their real roots are believed to
be embedded in his constitutional endowment, and the man
in whom we are interested took his particular temperament
into military life with him to affect his adjustment for better
or worse.

Yet another article in the new soldier’s psychological bag- |
gage is his particular assortment of acquired or learned habits
[or “patterns”] of meeting similar situations in life in similar
ways. This is a most interesting process in the lives of us all,
and because it is so likely to affect our adjustment it seems
worth while to discuss it a bit. Very early in life every one of
us began to lay down patterns or habits of reacting to similar
experiences in similar ways. During the course of an ordinary
lifetime each of us meets up with thousands of experiences,
but when we commence to analyze these different experi-
ences we soon realize that, while many are superficially differ-
ent, nevertheless most can be reduced to a few common de-
nominators. It is surprising, indeed, to note how few are the
really basic experiences in the life of any one of us, and most
of the difficult things that happen to us can be classified
under the heading of meeting frustration, or disappointment,
or loss, or having to accept the imposition of authority.

These are some of the life experiences that come to every-
one and they constitute our common lot in compelling us to
learn how to adjust to the world around us. Even the tiny
baby is not immune to the experience of being frustrated in
‘some of his wishes or to feeling a sense of loss or to being
disappointed. As he continues to meet these various basic
experiences in his life, he tends to form a habit or a pattern
of reacting to them. Thus, one child faced by some thwarting
of his wishes begins by reacting to such an experience in

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terms of a temper tantrum, while a second child may react
to a frustrating experience by sulking and trying to make
people give in by causing them to feel sorry for him, or yet
again a third reacts to disappointment or loss by withdrawing
into himself and building up an inner world of fantasy and
unrealistic daydreaming to compensate himself for his loss.
It makes little difference what the mode of reaction is. The
point of it all is that, after an individual has reacted to a
certain kind of experience in a certain fashion over a long
enough time, he automatically develops the habit or pattern
of meeting all experiences of that kind during his lifetime in
the same stereotyped way. As will be seen later, it is impor-
tant to understand this because the habits or patterns that
the soldier laid down during the developmental years of his
life are going to play a considerable role in determining not
only how he adjusted to military life, but more particularly
how he is going to adjust to his return home when he is
either discharged or demobilized. He takes these assortments
of habits or patterns into military service with him as part
of his psychological equipment and sometimes, if they are
unhealthy, the patterns may make his adjustment painful
unless they can be unlearned.

The cultural conditioning of our man is still another article
of equipment he took with him. As Americans, it has long
been our pride that we are a composite of many peoples,
not only from many different lands but from differing regions
within our own country. A boy, for example, whose parents
came from Italy may have a different cultural conditioning
from a boy whose parents spent their early lives in Denmark.
By the same token a serviceman who spent most of his life on
a farm in the South is apt to have a different cultural condi-

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tioning from another who spent all the previous years of his
life in a busy city in the North. It should be made clear, of
course, that we are not talking about the superiority of any
one culture over another. It is merely a recognition of differ-
ences in culture, which include differences in folklore and in
attitudes toward such simple things as customs in eating,
amusement, friendliness to strangers, and a long list of addi-
tional items. More, even, than our public schools does mili-
tary life bring men of different backgrounds closely together,
and no small part of the initial adjustment to military life is
that necessitated by a man who reflects one cultural back-
ground in learning to respect and adapt himself to a man
from another. The indispensable close living of military life
promotes tolerance, and, if a man happens to come from a
home where cultural intolerance in some measure or other
was prevalent, his newly won broad-mindedness may make
for adjustment difficulties with the members of his own
narrow family on his return.

Another piece of psychological apparatus taken into mill-
tary service with a man is his backlog of civilian skills and his
special vocational abilities or disabilities. ‘To an extent never
before attempted, the army and navy have endeavored to dis-
cover the special vocational abilities of the men in service and
to assign them as far as may be possible to jobs that can con-
structively utilize such abilities. This process is highly system-
atized and begins at the reception center where the man first
reports after acceptance by the induction board. He spends a
week or more in this reception center, during which he is
personally interviewed and his educational, vocational, and
social history is obtained. He is also given various aptitude
and other tests, and on the basis of all these he is assigned

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to a type of activity where his abilities can best be used.
Special talents or experience are particularly sought for.

Mistakes, of course, have been made here and there, as
is inevitable in dealing with as large a group as some eleven
million persons. However, it is astonishing to see how a man
entering military service with some special skill is encouraged
to advance his knowledge of that skill during his service and
to adapt it to military use. This war is particularly a war of
machines, and, unlike the young men of most other nations,
our American soldiers and sailors have for the most part been
reared in a mechanized environment. There is an excellent
chance that the man in whom we are interested entered serv-
ice with at least a rudimentary familiarity with mechanical
skills, which, depending both on need and on opportunity,
undoubtedly were sharpened by further training in a military
environment. Scores of other skills, too, have been taken by
their possessors into military life to be subjected to further
intensive training. Such advanced training will be of help in
furnishing these men with a sense of vocational security on
their return home and at this time it appears likely that voca-
tional retraining following the demobilization period may not -
be needed quite so much as was the case following the close
of World War I.

Last, but perhaps most important, of all the equipment
taken by our man into military service is his personal degree
of emotional maturity. By this is meant particularly his ca-
pacity on most occasions to “act his age” and be free to a
reasonable extent from emotional dependency on parents or
parent symbols. Reaching an acceptable degree of freedom
from emotional dependency on parents is one of the primary

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tasks confronting all adolescent boys and girls, and, since the
army and navy are made up of a goodly percentage of ado-
lescents and persons in their post-adolescent stage of mental
development, the attainment of emotional maturity has pro-
found repercussions both on military life and on civilian re-
adjustment afterward. An emotionally immature person is
one who meets one of the basic experiences in life not as
the average person of his own age and background ordinarily
meets such an experience, but rather as a younger person.
would meet an experience of this kind. Reluctance or even
inability to take average responsibility for oneself and the
management of one’s own behavior is one example of this.
The need to lean or depend on another person to an exces-
sive degree for solving trivial problems or for making minor
decisions is still another. Reacting to still other life experi-
ences in what is generally called a “childish” way is yet a third
example of immaturity. Emotional immaturity has nothing
to do with a person’s intelligence, nor is it visible in his physi-
cal make-up. It is much more subtle than that and is to be
found in the make-ups of those from the highest to the lowli-
est walks in life. Army officers in high command may be emo-
tionally immature just as much as the obscure private, but
whether he is in high position or low, in many ways a man’s
degree of emotional maturity is going to determine how satis-
factory are both his military and his civilian adjustment.
The emotionally mature person can be recognized by sev-
eral characteristics habitually in evidence. Dr. Maurice
Levine, a psychiatrist in Cincinnati, describes some of these
in a chapter of his book Psychotherapy in Medical Practice.

1 Pyblished by The Macmillan Company, New York.
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“One characteristic of the emotionally mature person is
his ability to live his life to a greater degree in terms of the
actual realities that confront him, rather than in terms of
his wishes, his phantasies, or his fears. Children to a great
extent live in terms of their wishes and fears. A lonely child
may deny the reality of his loneliness by pretending that he
has playmates, and live in a phantasy world. In childhood
play this is good fun; in the serious aspects of adult life, it
means that one is tricking oneself and seeing things
crookedly. . . . Another characteristic of emotional ma-
turity is the tendency to live one’s life in terms of long-
time values rather than in short-time values. As human
beings grow older, as they have to make an adjustment to
other people they have to learn to give up momentary
pleasures for the sake of more lasting ones; they have to
become willing to defer immediate satisfactions when those
satisfactions would block or stultify or destroy the more
lasting satisfactions in life. One of the best criteria of ma-
turity is the capacity to stand a necessary, temporary frus-
TAEOM Ney ,

“Yet another characteristic of emotional maturity is the
ability to be independent. This does not mean the bluster-
ing defiance of authority in the guise of ‘independence,’
nor an unwillingness to take advice, that may be camou-
flaged under the need to be self-sufficient. This does not
mean the sort of independence that masks the desire to be
the dominant one in a situation, or that conceals the urge
to run other people’s lives, to play the ‘big boss.’ It does
mean, however, an independence of this kind; that the in-
dividual is able to stand on his own feet when necessary,
that he is not still tied to his parents’ apron strings, that

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he is not constantly dependent upon others for advice in
trivial situations, that he is able to take some reasonable
responsibility for himself, and that he does not have an
excessive amiability or willingness to give in. . . . The ca-
pacity to have a reasonable dependence on others is still
a third characteristic of the emotionally mature person.
Inter-personal relationships involve an inter-dependence.
Cooperation involves being on the receiving end as well as
the giving end, in work, in marriages, in play, and in friend-
ships. The ability to take advice when it is pertinent and
contributory to one’s own decision and responsibility, the
capacity to be able to receive love and friendship from
others, to be able to accept when others want to give; these
are mature and valid characteristics. Some people are un-
able to receive or to be wholesomely dependent because
their pride is hurt if they are not the giver; to them, giving
means strength and power, while receiving means playing
second fiddle, being inferior. A mature person can give a
great deal, but he can also enjoy receiving.”

This need to be reasonably mature in the development of
one’s feelings or emotional life is of the utmost importance
when it comes to making an adjustment, first of all to mili-
tary life and subsequently to the man’s return home in the
community. This may be clearer if we look for a moment
at the processes through which a person goes before he
reaches normal emotional adulthood or emotional maturity.
The process starts in early infancy when, very properly and
very necessarily, the little child is completely dependent upon
his parents for everything; his food, his shelter, his protection,
and even his very thoughts and ideas. As he grows up, how-

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ever, the little child begins to do some thinking for himself,
and he finds, sometimes to his consternation, that his
thoughts about certain matters do not any longer always agree
with those of his parents. Sometimes this creates in him a
feeling of guilt as if somehow he were disloyal to his parents,
but at the same time his independence of thinking continues,
driven, as it were, by an almost biologic urge. As he grows
older and enters upon the stage of adolescence this inner urge
for independence becomes greater and its outward expression
often is found in that type of behavior sometimes labeled
“adolescent rebellion.” During this adolescent period the boy
or girl is apt to be conflicted and torn between opposing
wishes. One part of him wishes to grow up and become inde-
pendent and to learn how to stand on his own feet, in other
words, to become a real adult. The other part of him, how-
ever, remembers with nostalgia the protected, carefree, happy-
go-lucky days of childhood, when no responsibility was thrust
upon him and when he was sheltered not only in a physical
sense but also in a psychological sense. Out of this conflict
emerge various types of adolescent behavior, which may affect
the individual’s subsequent life adjustment. Nevertheless, if
the adolescent has had wise parents and if luck has been with
him eventually he muddles through to an adjustment to life
satisfactorily enough to justify the designation “mature.”

On the other hand, a number of children during their de-
velopmental years have had obstacles thrown in their path
toward eventual emancipation from dependence on parents
and parental symbols. Sometimes these obstacles are found in
the attitudes of the parents themselves, who unwittingly are
reluctant to have their children grow up and leave them or
become freed from their control and who tend, therefore, to

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make the protected era of childhood so attractive that the
youngster finds little incentive to leave it. On occasions other
types of obstacles, over which not even parents have control,
serve to prolong the normal period of dependency so that,
while the boy or girl is growing up physically and intellectu-
ally in proper fashion, his emotional growth—in some respects
at least—remains retarded.

The economic depression through which this country
passed a decade ago is one example of this. The effects of this
depression on the journey toward maturity of hundreds of
thousands of our young people are likely to be seen in the
ways these persons will make their postwar adjustments.
During those ten terrible years of national depression, un-
employment and privation stalked the land and only a pro-
gram of vast public relief could be depended upon for the
bare necessities of existence for millions of families. As a con-
sequence tens of thousands of our men in military service
today spent the most formative and susceptible years of their
lives in an emotional atmosphere tempered by a temptation
toward dependency. During those lean years untold numbers
of these then children could never remember a steadily em-
ployed father or a time when the family life did not center
around the weekly food basket or the check from the Relief
Bureau. Equally many of these adolescents never had an op-
portunity to work for themselves for wages, and legions of
them extended high-school or college courses as substitutes
for jobs that were not to be had. Under the circumstances
large numbers of them began imperceptibly to endow the
Relief Bureau—and more remotely the ‘““Government”—with
parental qualities of support and assumption of responsibility.
This, of course, was no fault of theirs or of their parents, and

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for many it was unavoidable. Nevertheless, as a consequence
the journey toward adult maturity and independence of
countless thousands of young people slowed down under the
necessity for yielding some of the freedom they were just be-
ginning to win in favor of a return to enforced dependency.
What is said here implies no criticism of the purposes or pro-
grams of Relief. ‘There are many, including this writer, who
are convinced that our nation could not have survived those
disastrous years without Relief. However, recognition of its
need and appreciation of its value cannot obscure the fact
that, while Relief went far to solve one national problem,
its implicit, if unavoidable, invitation to dependency created
another of even more enduring complexity.

Thus it happens that a substantial number of the men in
military service today are the products of this depression
and dependency era. The temptation to return, emotionally
speaking, to an earlier stage of development in which they
were taken care of has been embedded deeply in their
make-up. Not all, of course, will yield to this temptation
when they leave military service, but some will, and the
numbers of these doubtless will be large enough to create a
national problem of much consequence when it comes to
assuming once more the responsibilities of independent living
after the war. The precise details of the national problem
that may well be precipitated by these emotionally immature
and dependency-conditioned individuals are not yet clear, but
the general shape of the problem is discernible and will
almost certainly include demands by this group of ex-service-
men not only for pensions, but, in the case of many, for
indefinitely prolonged hospitalization of mental and physical
conditions for which excessive institutionalization is the worst

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possible treatment, if the assumption of self-support and in-
dependent living is the goal of treatment. |

One of the most vulnerable bits of psychological baggage
taken into military service by the man in whom we are inter-
ested consists therefore of his personal degree of emotional
maturity (which includes his relative freedom from emo-
tional dependency). If he happened to be in the stage of
adolescence when he went into service he was probably en-
gaged unconsciously in bursting his final shackles of child-
hood dependency on his parents, and what happened to him
after entering military service might well have tipped the
balance, in the direction either of proceeding to emancipa-
tion or, on the other hand, of regressing to a more dependent
state of existence.

War, with its military need for obedience to orders and
its frequent subordination of individuality, independent
thinking, and self-direction, offers scant incentive to adoles-
cents who need for their own salvation to complete their
emancipation from childhood dependency on parental sym-
bols. It is not, of course, a predestined certainty that all sol-
diers on their return to the community will yield to this
“call of the cradle,” but the temptation at least will be there,
and we who receive these men back to our bosoms can do
much to keep the temptation from becoming a reality by
making adulthood more attractive than eternal childhood.

‘These, then, are some of the articles of hidden equipment
that every soldier takes into war with him. That they cannot
_ be seen with the eyes or touched with the fingers does not
lessen their importance as tools that make military adjust-
ment easy or difficult. If among this psychological baggage

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there be articles of maturity, outgoingness, and resiliency of
personality, the recent civilian finds his adjustment to the
new life not too arduous. On the other hand, if it contains
an oversupply of rigidity, fragile personality traits, or eccen-
tricity, then trouble in adaptation of one kind or another 1s
bound to ensue. It is important to realize, however, that no
matter what kind of psychological equipment was taken into
military service by the man in whom we are interested, the
new life did things to that equipment, and the next chapter
will explain the nature of some of those things.

eal

2,

WHAT DID MILITARY SERVICE DO
TO THE FORMER CIVILIAN?

tion station military service began to do things to

him. Some of these things were to his advantage

and others perhaps were not, but, healthy or unhealthy, the
new life hurled demand after demand on him for adjustment
to a bewildering set of changes. Among these adjustments
three stand out with particular prominence: (1) adjustment
to the loss of individuality; (2) adjustment to separation
from.entrenched habits of living and from accustomed inter-
personal relationships; (3) adjustment to the loss of the free-
dom he possessed in civilian life to shape his surroundings
and environment in accordance with his own needs or wishes.
Of all human possessions our individuality or our aware-
ness of self as a special sort of person is the most prized.
Lessen our sense of personal identity and you throw open the
door to lowered self-esteem and make easy the entrance of
feelings of inferiority and anxiety. In civilian life the most
mousy of us will fight to the last ditch to maintain some

ie ode

Ries: the day that a man reported at the induc-

SOLDIER TO GIVILIAN
individuality, that need to make the world aware of us as
different—even in a slight way—from the mass of others. But
military life necessarily exerts strong discouragement to indi-
viduality. War is a group experience, especially modern war,
and there is scant place in it for the retention of centrifugally
directed traits or mannerisms. In battle the safety of the
group often depends on the action of the group as a whole,
not on any one individual, and more than one combat catas-
trophe has been reported as due to the insistence of one per-
son to break away from concerted group action. This is why
military authorities deliberately inculcate the submergence of
self from the very day the soldier or sailor reports for duty.
The lengths to which this necessary process goes prove
disturbing at first to many men, especially those who in
civilian life had become accustomed to emphasizing their in-
dividualities, such as professional men, artists, and the like.
Disturbing or not, all men in military service are subjected
to some degree of that process someone has termed the “at-
tainment of anonymity.” ‘Two army psychiatrists, Drs. Mas-
kin and Altman,* describe this process vividly:

“The very uniform the soldier wears obscures identity,
and his personal name is replaced by a serial number.
Anonymity is enhanced by distinction-obliterating activi-

— ties, such as constant waiting in line, marching in cadence,
mass calisthenics. The individual loses significance in his
own right and merges imperceptibly into the background
of platoon or company. . .. The soldier can rarely be
alone. He sleeps in a barracks and uses an open latrine.

1 “Psychological Factors in the Transition from Civilian to Soldier,”
Psychiatry, Vol. 6, No. 3.

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There are no situations where his privacy cannot be in-
vaded. The initiative for personality functioning passes into
other hands. The soldier starts and stops at commands; his
activities are predetermined by regulation. . . . It is no
longer as in civilian life, “What do I think, feel, want?’—
but—‘What is the directive?’"—Familiar old functions of
self-planning are denied.”

Loss of individuality of this kind is but one of the things
that going into military service does to a man. In time, how-
ever, he comes to accept it and grow used to it. Indeed, except
for a few whose need to cling to individuality was so deeply
rooted that even military life could not dent it (and these
sometimes acquired labels as “disciplinary problems” or “mis-
fits’), he probably came to depend and lean on this sub-
mergence of self, at least to a degree. A man found, rather to
his surprise, that he derived a sort of group support from the
experience; if it was necessary to efface the former self, then
by compensation he began to discover a new self—a Com-
pany X self, a Division Y self, a Battleship Z self. From a
military point of view this growth of identification with the
group is highly desirable and is encouraged at every point.
And so long as our man remained in military service he likely
found it a source of security. In it he found two, at least, of
the chief ingredients that go into the making of a feeling of
security (i.e., emotional security)—a realization of “belong-
ingness” and a realization of acceptance. Even in everyday
life we must discover these ingredients if we are to become
reasonably secure in our feelings and in our relationships to
others. We must come to realize for example, that we “be-
long” to the group of which we are a part. ‘This means realiza-

saaifis

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

tion of belongingness to our family group, our school group,
and our shop or office or work group and, if we are to attain
to true emotional maturity, the realization that we belong to
the rest of mankind.

It is not enough, however, to feel that we “belong” if we
are to be emotionally secure. In addition we must achieve
a realization that the others in whatever group we have at-
tained belongingness accept us as one of that group. Thus,
it is insufficient to realize that we belong to the Smith or the
Jones family, or the A factory, or the B office, or the C
church. Beyond all this if we are to feel really secure we must
realize as well, that the others in the family or the factory or
the office or the church accept us as one of themselves. “In
union there is strength” is a trite enough adage, but nowhere
is it truer than in personal relationships.

If a new soldier must adjust to loss of his individuality
when he goes into the service, it is not all loss, therefore, but
some gain through group identification, at least while he is in
active service. Once he returns to civilian life, however, the
story is apt to be reversed, and in a later chapter mention
will be made of how the relinquishment of his hard-won se-
curity through identification with the group makes his home
adjustment difficult, when once more he finds himself on his
own.

Men with certain personality characteristics or back-
grounds of life experiences fit more easily into this need for
loss of individuality than others. For example, the chronically
shy, self-effacing person may welcome the anonymous exist-
ence of army or navy life as a sort of refuge and take to it
with avidity. Likewise, the passive, dependent personality
with scant self-initiative or self-motivation may find comfort-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN
able the military environment that takes over for him the
need for making decisions or for assuming responsibilities
that might bring him to attention through “sticking his neck
out” as an assertive individual. On the other hand, some pro-
fessional men as discussed previously; some men with strong
exhibitionistic or narcissistic qualities; or others with out-
standing racial or regional characteristics that they may have
found it expedient to capitalize in civilian life, find the army’s
demand for submergence of these traits a sore trial.

Pfc. David Evans of an infantry company offers a good
example of the trials and tribulations encountered by some
men in adjusting to loss of individuality. Private Evans
stood out in his company like a sore thumb. He was intelli-
gent enough—indeed, his embittered sergeant often
thought too much so for his own good—but he seemed to
have a constitutional aversion to doing things the way his
buddies did. If army regulations prescribed wearing fatigue
caps tilted over the right eye, Private Evans was always
“forgetting” and would wear his over the left, and if blan-
kets on barracks cots were supposed to be folded back a
precise four inches Private Evans thought it looked better
if he set his at five.

Moreover, he was invariably finding new or different
ways of performing duties. On maneuvers when his platoon
agreed to try to ambush an enemy column from woods at
the right, Evans would be found, like as not, slithering off
in response to some improved ideas of his own through
open fields on the left. If the grenade instructor demon-
strated how to lob them with an overhand swing, this indi-
vidualist was sure his underhand throw was more effective.

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN
It wasn’t that he wanted to be insubordinate. He just natu-
rally had to do things his way. Often enough, his way
proved in the end to be an improvement, but it as fre-
quently interfered with unanimous group action when
group unity might mean the very lives of his comrades.

How did Private Evans get that way? The answer is sim-
ple. He merely carried over into his military life the same
habits of individualism that had characterized him as a
civilian. He tried conscientiously to fit himself into the
military pattern of a team worker and to sink his individu-
ality into the common picture. But it was no go.

Even as a youngster Dave Evans was a trial to his
teachers and his parents. If his boyhood crowd wanted to
swim in the pool below the dam Dave argued brilliantly
on the advantages of the river. If it was the vogue of the
moment for boys to wear crew cuts Dave remained con-
spicuous for his long, unbarbered hair. If airplane modeling
chanced to be the accepted recreation for the majority,
then young Evans would be found diligently absorbed in
model railroads. Later, in his first year at college, when
most of his classmates were going into fraternities, Dave
declined invitation after invitation and stood out as an in-
dependent.

Private Evans finally was wounded and discharged to his
home, and there were dark mutterings among some of his
company that he was lucky not to have been court-mar-
tialed. At Saipan, Private Evans and three companions
were sent out on a reconnaissance task. Their instructions
were that if they were cut off by the enemy they were to
take shelter, remain silent, and wait until a rescuing party

SAL) 2

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

came for them. The group was cut off, they did take shelter,
and for a time they did keep silence.

But after some seven hours of this Private Evans thought
up one of his better ideas. His companions expostulated
vigorously in whispers but Evans’s reasoning was so clever
and apparently unassailable that they gave in against their
better judgments. Evans’s idea was to wriggle off a way,
and then fire at the enemy to divert attention while the
others made a dash for safety. He didn’t know that at that
very moment a rescuing party was approaching silently,
hoping to take the Japs by surprise. And so Private Evans
as per his plan did send a burst of shots against the little
brown men, whereupon bedlam broke loose. The position
of the rescuing party was disclosed and for a few moments
it was nip and tuck whether they would all be wiped out.
Happily, they managed to get away, but with several
wounded, of whom Private Evans was one. His individual-
ity just could not be submerged in the interests of the
group to a point where he was safe to have around, and his
buddies heaved sighs of relief when he was evacuated.

The second of our three major demands for adjustment on
going into military life is for adaptation to the loss of famil-
iar or deeply entrenched habits of living and to separation
from accustomed inter-personal relationships.

A considerable number of men leaving home for military —
service welcomed this separation. A few, of course, frankly
used compulsory military service as a socially acceptable ex-
cuse for deserting their families without having to suffer the
customary penalties of legal action or of gnawing conscience.
Many others, however, plodding faithfully with family re-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

sponsibilities nevertheless yearned secretly for a “vacation”
from them. They would rather be torn apart by wild horses
than publicly admit such a yearning, but in their inner hearts
they welcomed the temporary relief conferred by military
service from family control, responsibility, and obligations.
The married man of this kind was likely to have anticipated
his army experience as a sort of return to bachelor freedom,
and he gladly yielded up to his wife (with, perhaps, a display
of face-saving reluctance) the irksome details of family man-
agement—complete control over the children, payment of
taxes, mortgage installments, renewal of automobile licenses,
and all the other myriad irritations implied in the assumption
of family responsibility. This willingness to permit his family
to revert for a time to a matriarchal institution did not indi-
cate that he was necessarily a weakling or a coward. The
chances were greatly in favor of his being an averagely ma-
ture, responsible individual, who, nevertheless, objected only
conventionally to Uncle Sam’s invitation to shed his mantle
as a “family man” and once more become “one of the boys.”

And it must be admitted that, in her secret heart, more
than one wife likewise welcomed—although her feelings about
it may have been a bit mixed—the opportunity of becoming
the actual head of the family. She may have believed (and
she may have been correct in her belief) that she could
manage these myriad family responsibilities more efficiently
than her husband, with the result that the latter’s secret sigh
of relief at going off to camp was echoed by one of her own.
No sooner had the front door closed on his departing figure
than she, drying her tears, may have bustled into the living
room to rearrange the furniture the way she had always
wanted to, banished to the attic the shabby and disgraceful

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

easy chair her husband stubbornly clung to, and instituted
a new regime of disciplining the children without fear of
paternal interference. Of course, like many other things in
this world the shift to a matriarchal family life for the “dura-
tion” brought difficulties in its train, but those difficulties in
numerous instances proved less uncomfortable than the re-
adjustment to a patriarchal status when the husband and
father returned. Some wives, given a taste of freedom, power,
and total responsibility, are reluctant to relinquish these, and
in a later chapter of this book will be found a discussion of
the problems ensuing when Father returns to step back into
his former role.

A good many unmarried men also welcomed the separation
from accustomed inter-personal relationships enforced by in-
duction into the service. Among these were a proportion of
rebellious adolescents straining at the bit of parental con-
trol. They, too, yearned secretly (and some weren’t at all
secret about it) for a socially acceptable excuse that would
make it possible to get out from under what they considered
—rightly or wrongly—to be parental domination. ‘They were
under the delusion, poor kids, that once away from home and
in the army they could be their own boss; no more mother
around to tell them when to change a shirt; no more father
to say they couldn’t have the car tonight. That much of this
illusion of freedom proved to be illusion came quickly to be
true, but for this group of new soldiers the loss of familiar
habits of living and the separation from accustomed inter-
personal relationships were welcomed at the outset with en-
thusiasm.

For the majority of men, however, who left home to enter
military service adjustment to this loss and this separation

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SOLDIER TO.CIVILIAN

proved painful. After all, not many people really like to
change their major ways of living or to have to create an
entirely new set of relationships to others. To be sure, most
of us in the course of a lifetime do have to make such
changes, but few really welcome them. We are all essentially
creatures of habit by the time we reach adult years, and mon-
umental changes in habits are to be shunned if possible. Re-
silient, outgoing personalities meet these demands for changes
with a bit of grousing perhaps, but they make a virtue of
necessity and eventually come through all right. Rigid, nega-
tivistic personalities resist change with sometimes an aston-
ishing tenacity, and it is among this group, along with others
who are immature, dependent, or insecure, that adjustment
to the loss of civilian habits and relationship securities is
made with especial difficulty. Reports from army and navy
training centers indicate that it is this group who contribute
an appreciable percentage to those who never are able to ad-
just themselves to military life and who are required (uncon-
sciously, of course) to develop emotional or physical symp-
toms as an outward expression of the adjustment strain they
are unable to digest. In this respect it is interesting to note
that the experience of military doctors indicates that of all
the men who “break down” with emotional disabilities while —
in training camps, almost half of them “break” during the
first month of military service; about 75 per cent experience
their breakdowns within the first two months, and some 97
per cent break within six months after they begin military
duty. Of course, others develop psychiatric disabilities while
overseas under combat conditions, but for the most part this
latter group constitutes another story to be dealt with later in
this book.

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN
One soldier of this immature kind, unable to adapt to
change, became morbidly depressed and attempted suicide
six weeks after reporting to a boot camp in the navy. He
_ had made a conscientious effort to adapt himself to his
new life, but the separation from his mother, his high-
school gang in the small town where he had lived, and
the familiar surroundings that gave him security so long
as he remained tightly anchored to them proved too much.
Although a splendid physical specimen, he never had
grown up in his feelings and represented one of those emo-
tionally immature personalities referred to in the preceding
chapter. He was an only child whose mother unwisely clung
to him for her own emotional needs and created a patho-
logic dependency on her. He had never been allowed to be
away from home before, even for a night, and thus had
never been able to achieve any degree of reliance on him-
self. Depression and attempted suicide, therefore, seemed
to him the only way out of a situation with which he was
unprepared to cope.

Another basically similar example was found in an un-
married man of thirty-five who, too, couldn’t adapt himself
to separation from the narrow (but protecting) circle of
humdrum daily activities or from his emotional attachment
to his mother. He expressed his inability to adjust to mili-
tary life by becoming alcoholic and finally going A.W.O.L.
Although he lived in a large city he never came to know
much of it except for the immediate neighborhood in
which he was born and brought up. His friendships liter-
ally were all among a small group of persons with whom
he had gone to school, and his recreational interests were

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what many would term “narrow.” He had reduced life to
a formula: get up in the morning, go to the factory where
he got his first job after leaving school and where he was
still engaged eighteen years later on the same type of work,
come home to the supper his doting mother prepared for
him, read the evening paper, visit the poolrooms where his
never-changing cronies hung out, return home, and go to
bed. ‘This routine seldom changed in all his years. He had
never married, had few women friends, and gradually had
grooved a rut in life for himself which he found comfort-
able. ‘The jolt from this rut proved too much for this
man, and since never before had he experienced drastic
change his unpreparedness for it and his lack of ordinary
resiliency made escape imperative. His method of escape
was alcohol until one day, when under its influence, he
gave up trying any more and extended a week-end pass
from camp into a flight to home and mother. Psychiatrists
at induction centers have come to learn that middle-aged
personalities like the one possessed by this man—immature,
unmarried, dependent (in an emotional sense) on their
mothers, and living a narrow almost vegetative existence—
are apt to be poor risks in the army or navy and often are
rejected for military service. Incidentally, the psychiatrists
have come to learn also how often such personalities be-
come addicted to the excessive use of alcohol.

The nature of the third demand that military service
makes for adjustment is another coming under the category
of “loss.” This particular demand has to do with the man’s
loss of his former freedom and ability to shape his surround-
ings in accordance with his desires or needs. When one stops

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to think about it, it is amazing how each of us living under
a democracy has utilized our freedom to change our surround-
ings or our relationships to other people as we please. In-
deed, it is this very freedom that enables many of us to get
along day by day in our communities without revealing our
particular quirks or eccentricities or unusual notions. Few of
us are without some of these peculiarities of temperament or
notions about things. If we do not happen to like outdoor
work, we are free to get a job indoors; if living in close quar-
ters with a number of people makes us uncomfortable, there
are no rules against finding a room or a job where we can be
semi-isolated; if we develop a prejudice against redheaded per-
sons, we can contrive to keep away from them; if we do not
like our boss at the shop or the office, we are free to quit and
get a job under a more congenial supervisor; if we dislike
monotony and routine, no one prevents us from seeking ex-
citement; or if we do not happen to like change, we can
always settle down in a comfortable rut of sameness.

_ Thus, this freedom to shape our physical and mental en-
vironments keeps many of us on a sufficiently even keel so
that our little eccentricities pass unnoticed and we are not
subjected to the strain of having to try to adjust to strain-
provoking experiences. Once a man was in the army or navy,
however, he largely lost this freedom. In military life a man
found himself in a highly inelastic environment where every
variation in his temperament stood out in bold relief, and,
to make matters worse, he was helpless to change his environ-
ment. If being herded in with many others made him jittery
and anxious in civilian life, if the requirement of living in
crowded barracks or between decks in a ship accentuated
these feelings, there was no way for him to do anything about

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lessening the strain. If he didn’t like his sergeant, he couldn’t
quit as he would have done in the factory back home. If he
didn't like change, there was no way he could prevent being
transferred from unit to unit and place to place. ,

Many men reminiscing about their first weeks in service re-
call this loss of freedom as the most difficult adjustment of
all. Small wonder, then, if its demands proved too great for
some, although the majority muddled through eventually to
an acceptable adaptation. Among those who couldn’t adjust
were to be found a proportion of rigid, self-centered indi-
viduals, including many whose prewar personalities were char-
acterized by inner anxiety or fear expressed outwardly by
habitual rebelliousness, or obstinacy, or perhaps negativism.
Still others among this group who could not adjust to loss
of the freedom to shape their environments were persons who.
were neurotically sick before they joined the service, persons
with deep-seated mental conflicts whose ability to keep going
in their civilian surroundings was so precariously balanced
that changes in their daily habits or environment threw them
off balance and into confusion.

Seaman Third Class Luigi Santozzi was discharged from
a navy hospital after nine months of service because of
“psychoneurosis.” He had been acting strangely for some
time, appearing depressed, tense, and anxious, but it was
his numerous peculiarities that really brought him to at-
tention. He wouldn’t go to the mess hall for his meals with —
the others and subsisted largely on articles he purchased at
the ship’s canteen. He said that navy food didn’t agree
with him and that there were only certain things he could
cat that wouldn’t upset his stomach. He complained that

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the wool in his dark blue uniforms made him feel “queer,”
and once he narrowly escaped being placed in the brig for
refusal to wear them. When he was required to be below
decks in a shut-in place he grew panicky and once rushed
about aimlessly and screaming in terror. At inspections
when he had to stand at attention he squirmed and fidg-
eted, and more than once he was overheard muttering to
himself at a sharp command from an officer.

Seaman Santozzi had been suffering from a type of neu-
rosis for several years prior to induction into the navy, but
neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of his numer-
ous quirks and peculiarities as indicating any disorder of
his emotional balance, and somehow he slipped through
the induction examination without their being detected.
Back in his home town Santozzi had managed by one de-
vice or another to keep his eccentricities from becoming
too noticeable or too crippling.

Since childhood he had had food fads and took an in-
ordinate interest in experimenting with various diets and
their effects on his stomach and his state of chronic con-
- stipation. He drove his mother frantic with his demands
for special cooking, and when at last she rebelled he would
~ seek out vegetarian or other specialized restaurants, After
a time one such restaurant would pall, but since he lived
in a fair-sized city he could always hunt up another.

Then, too, he was always changing jobs. Work in those
days was plentiful, and whenever he grew dissatisfied
(which was often) with the nature of the work in one fac-
tory, or with the attitude of the foreman, or with his sur-
roundings, or with the personality of the fellow who worked
next to him, he would impulsively quit and soon be taken

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on in another. By means of these frequent changes he
could contrive to keep one jump ahead of his peculiarities
since he seldom remained long enough in any one place for
them to become conspicuous.

He had other eccentricities, too. He developed some
ideas about wool as an article of clothing. It wasn’t that
he was physically allergic to wool, or that it made him
break out in a rash or anything. It was merely that he had
ideas that somehow wool was unhealthy, and even in the
cold weather he went to great pains to buy suits of clothing
that contained none of this obnoxious material.

He was likewise somewhat peculiar regarding encounters
with authority or with people who hurt his feelings, which,
incidentally, were forever being hurt. If a foreman at the
factory spoke brusquely to him Santozzi would settle the
matter by quitting his job, or if a waitress failed to accord
him the attention he felt was his due he would leave his
meal unfinished and hunt up another place to eat.

All in all, Seaman Santozzi was a pretty sick personality,
but so long as he was free to manage his life just as he
pleased he could keep functioning after a fashion and avoid
too many frustrations to his peculiar ideas. Once in a regi-
mented environment like the navy, however, this freedom
largely was lost. As a result Seaman Santozzi’s capacity to
adjust to frustrations was put to a more severe test than his
neurosis would permit him to digest, and tension, anxiety,
and depression were the outward manifestations of his in-
ward inability to shape his environment any longer in ac-
cordance with his sickened ideas. Seaman Santozzi was not
insane, but he was neurotically sick. This sickness made
him a military liability, but back again in his community,

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SOLDIER, TO; CLV CLIAN

where he could recapture his freedom to mold his sur-
roundings to the demands of his eccentricities, he might
go on for years without a final breakdown.

The results of the impact of military experiences on a man
in service depended then, to some extent at least, on the kind
of prewar personality that particular man had developed. As
stated in a preceding chapter, they depended on what psycho-
logical equipment the man took into service with him. While
many men were subjected to identically the same kinds of
experiences in military life, no two of them ever reacted to
those experiences in precisely the same way. For example, one
man under the unpredictable fortunes of war may have re-
ceived an assignment to a station close to his home, where
for the entire duration he could visit frequently and, with
only slight changes, carry on his life pretty much as he did
in peacetimes. If he possessed one set of personality charac-
teristics, marked, say, by immaturity, dependency, and need
to cling childishly to family protection, he may have reveled
in his good luck and performed his military duties in a satis-
factory fashion. He was apt to be cheerful, happy-go-lucky,
and efficient just so long as his sheltered environment lasted.
A second man, however, in the same type of assignment but
with a different set of personality characteristics may have
chafed under the restrictions that kept him still semi-tied to
his family and grown discontented. For a dozen different rea-
sons he may have wanted change, excitement, action, and he
resented the obligations that the accident of assignment to a
post close to home imposed on him for maintaining an exist-
ence that was neither wholly military nor wholly civilian, but
filled with the disadvantages of each.

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There is humdrum routine in the army as well as in civilian
life. Some thrive on it while others grow fretful. Many a man
fights the entire war assigned as a hospital corpsman, spend-
ing his whole time on duty doing literally nothing but taking
temperatures, or monotonously writing interminable records,
or carrying bedpans in a ward. Still other uncounted thou-
sands continue their civilian skills as bakers, butchers, cob-
blers, barbers, etc., in training camps and other homeland
posts for the whole duration of the war. If the personalities
of these men are adapted to humdrum routine, all goes well,
but let them possess make-ups that in previous years caused
them habitually to be restless and rarin’ to go, and you
are likely to have on your hands, as a reaction, a problem
either of insubordination or of neurotically-determined ill-
ness.

The impact of military experiences crashes most heavily on
those who eventually find themselves in combat. All the hum-
drum routine of the training camp now has vanished. This
is the real thing, and, like all human beings, the man in
whom we are interested tends to react to combat experience
in terms of the kind of personality patterns (or habits) he
had spent the earlier years of his life in developing. All the
basic experiences of life—fear, frustration, disappointment,
loss of security, reacting to authority—are now encountered
in all their primitive naked strength. They have to be met,
and, if humanly possible, they have to be reacted to construc-
tively: i.e., constructively both for the man himself and for
_ the group of which he is a part. Combat experience brings
out every last personality trait of major importance that a
man owns. If his entrenched patterns or habits of meeting
these basic experiences have been sound in the past, the

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chances are that these patterns will not desert him now—with
one exception to be commented on shortly. Frustration in the
face of enemy fire of the wish to live, disappointment at fail-
ing to achieve at once an immediate military objective, loss
of security conferred by the group when separated from com-
panions while isolated in a foxhole, the necessity for obeying
orders when these conflict with his own opinions—these are
but microscopic fragments of the numerous situations in
which the basic experiences of life are encountered under
combat conditions.

But fragmentary as these examples are, experiences like
these have to be met and reacted to, and it is now that the
habitual patterns or habits a man has formed in the past will
prove either a help or a hindrance in adjusting to them.

The exception referred to above is a battle experience so
intense, so horrible, so ghoulish that no human being can
adjust to it. Reports from military officials indicate that there
are many of these, especially in this war. Under such circum-
stances the soundest set of personality patterns will crumble
and give way to primitive fear. The resulting reactions often
are labeled “psychiatric,” but in view of the condition under
which they are elicited they might better be labeled “nat-
ural.” Lt. Col. Roy R. Grinker, a psychiatrist with the Army
Air Forces, tells of one such case:

. a twenty-year-old platoon sergeant had been well-
adjusted in civilian life with no evidences of undue anxiety,
nor none in the six major engagements prior to the battle
in which he came under hospital care. His platoon had
orders to take a hill and had been told they would meet
with no enemy opposition. The opposite proved to be true,

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and most of his men were wiped out by enemy machine
gun fire. The patient and a friend wandered about trying to
get back to their own lines, when they were caught in their
own artillery fire. They finally made their way to a fox-
hole, where they found a dead German and an American
soldier, the latter a member of their own company. The
patient’s friend threw the bodies out, and got into the fox-
hole. Shells were falling all around them and there was no
room in the foxhole for the patient. He then developed
intense anxiety and did not know what to do; finally he
lay prone on the ground and flung the dead bodies of the
two soldiers over his own for protection. He lay there for
a long time, trembling and terror-stricken, until finally a
shell exploded very close by and blew the two bodies off
the patient, ripping off his shirt at the same time. ‘The two
dead soldiers had actually saved his life. At this point his
mind went blank. He wandered about, and was picked up
by some men from his company who brought him back.—
When he entered one of the forward hospitals he had
acute anxiety, a persistent tremor, great restlessness, loss of
appetite and sleeplessness with battle dreams, in which he
re-lived his battle experiences, and also had nightmares in
which he saw himself being attacked by gorillas.

Colonel Grinker tells that under psychiatric care and treat-
ment this man made an excellent recovery, his anxiety symp-
toms disappeared, and later he was returned to duty.

It is experiences like this that break down the most power-
ful adjustment capacity, and no set of personality patterns
could stand up under the frightful impact of such happen-
ings. The development—temporarily at least—of some of

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those myriad symptoms of “anxiety” (using this term in its
technical meaning) that in the last war were called “shell
shock” is the most natural thing in the world in instances
like this and should never be interpreted as signs of weakness
or fragility of the man’s personality structure.

The question often is asked, “Will military service do
something to a soldier to make a ‘man’ out of one who, in
civilian life, had failed to reach man’s estate?” Unhappily,
there seem to be many well-meaning but uninformed people
who believe the answer invariably is “yes.” Such an answer,
however, does not always fit into the facts. To be sure, more
than one emotionally immature, dependent boy still tied to
his mother’s apron strings may have reached such a belated
stage of emancipation prior to induction that all he needed
was some encouragement and a final push in order to bur-
geon into maturity. Inducted into the army or navy, forcibly
expelled from the home nest, given an opportunity under
auspicious circumstances to try out his independent, fledgling
wings, he may be supplied with just the push he needed to
“make a man” of him. In certain other cases (but not too
often ), another may have had a record of civilian delinquency
or police-court appearances and had reached a stage in his
inner life when he was about ready to settle down, resolve
the inner conflicts that caused such behavior, and turn over
a new leaf. Induction into military service just at this critical
time, with its opportunity for new companions, new sur-
roundings and the enforced supervision of army or navy
regulations, may furnish such a person with just the stimulus
and support he requires to convert himself into an acceptable
soldier.

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SOLDIER: TO: GIVILTAN

By and large, however, the overwhelming experience of
military authorities goes to show that conversion from civil-
ian to military life does not and cannot “make a man” out
of previously flaccid or distorted material. This is particularly
true of a special kind of individual known as a “psychopathic
personality,” about which more will be explained in the next
chapter. Judges, despairing parents, disillusioned wives, even
some. draft-board officials themselves sometimes think of the
armed forces as a combination panacea and heaven-sent op-
portunity to get troublesome boys and men away from the
community. They rationalize their motives by the pious ver-
balization that the new life with its rigorous discipline will
“make a man” out of the troublemaker. What they are reluc-
tant to see, however, are the real motives frequently hidden
behind their rationalization. These are apt to be the human
tendency to rid ourselves of discomfort by unloading the
cause of it onto someone else, as well as the equally human
desire to punish the person who makes us uncomfortable by
advocating something unpleasant that will be good for his
soul. Draft-board records are replete with requests and even ©
demands from wives who secretly beseech that alcoholic hus-
bands be taken into military service; from criminal court
judges who are willing to make a deal with an habitual of-
fender to suspend sentence if only the army or navy will
take him; from parents of irresponsible, immature adolescents
embroiled in one scrape after another, who beg the authori-
ties to induct their offspring before he gets into the reforma-
tory.

Understandable as these demands may be, nevertheless
they are not good for the military services. Their makers need
to be reminded of the trite fact that there is a war on and

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

that you can’t remake a distorted personality without spend-
ing much time in first uprooting the basic causes for the dis-
tortion. Under the urgencies of war, military officials simply
do not have the time or the personnel to undertake the long-
drawn-out process of refashioning the behavior patterns of
men whose civilian adjustment had become habitually diff-
cult. This is why psychiatrists on duty at the various induc-
tion stations throughout the country rigorously try to screen
out and reject such inductees. Included among them are a
motley group. There are those, on the one hand, for example,
whose maladjustment in life is given the label of antisocial:
chronic offenders, gamblers, alcoholics, drug addicts, and the
like. On the other hand are included persons whose malad-
justment bears the label of neurotic illness: men with com-
pulsive behavior or obsessional thoughts, those with innumer-
able aches and pains without discoverable physical causation,
others with stomach ulcers produced by chronic tension and
anxiety. Still a third label of maladjustment includes those
with personality or character difficulties such as habitual irre-
sponsibility, unreliability, immaturity, callousness, egocentric-
ity, or temperaments so fundamentally cool and diffident that
they cannot relate themselves with average warmth to other
human beings.

These are but few of the types of persons whom neither
army nor navy can “make a man” of, and the services are
better off without them. Some, of course, inadvertently do
get into the armed forces, where most do badly. They carry
over their civilian maladjustments into the military environ-
ment and become responsible for a respectable percentage of
the disciplinary problems or the overfrequent hospitalization
with which harried and time-pressed officials are required to

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cope. On returning to civilian life after discharge or demobili-
zation these men tend to continue the same behavior pat-
terns without having been able to profit from their military
- experience. No, the impact of military service seldom “makes
-a man” out of one who wasn’t a “man” before he was in-
ducted; the immature are likely to stay immature, the anti-
social tend to remain antisocial, and the neurotically sick are
seldom made well.

Not all of the things that going into military service did
to a man were destructive. Life in army or navy also had
its compensations, and despite the incessant but healthy
“sriping” that is indelibly associated with all military life un-
numbered thousands of men are inwardly loathe to leave it.
For one thing, they found refuge and escape in the army from
myriad civilian worries, and escape, moreover, that was so-
cially acceptable. The man who in his civilian world was
inwardly nagged by a guilty conscience for wanting to be
independent in the face of what he regarded as a duty to re-
main with a widowed mother found himself forcibly detached
from her by an impersonal draft board. He had nothing to
say about it; the separation was a matter outside his control
and consequently, once he was in the army, the reasons for
his guilt tended to vanish. Military life conferred on him the
freedom that he had long wanted but felt too guilty to seize
on his own initiative, and best of all this freedom was at-
tained under conditions of high social approval. Another,
struggling honorably with the outward framework of a mar-
triage that he held to solely because of obligation, likewise
found surcease from conflict when once taken by the armed
forces. A third, feeling hopelessly caught in a dull, monoto-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

nous job with no ray of hope for change, is liberated by mili-
tary service and given a new lease on life. Still another, am-
bitious, aggressive, wanting to get ahead in the world, feels
stifled in a dead-end job that offers scant opportunities for
advancement. Snatched rudely but effectively into the wholly
new and invigorating atmosphere of military life, with its
infinite potentialities for ego recognition, he thrives like a
parched plant in the rain.

Other compensations, too, are offered to many by life
under military auspices. Many post-adolescents living an aim-
less, goalless existence in the civilian community, too imma-
ture or otherwise too lacking in motivation to take responsi-
bility for themselves in giving shape or form or order to their
lives, have this done for them in the well-ordered, well-regu-
lated climate of army or navy. That segment of youth re-
ferred to earlier in this book as having passed their develop-
mental years in the Depression era, with its implicit tempta-
tion to dependency, likewise may find comfortable the
freedom from worry about daily existence in army life where
everything is provided for them—food, shelter, clothing, en-
tertainment—without need for reciprocal return on their part
except for obedience to orders.

“Join the Navy and See the World” becomes today a slogan
equally adaptable to the army, and between the two services
a great part of some eleven million of our population are
being given, free of charge, a glamorous Cook’s tour of the
world. The effects of this in the future in lessening sectional-
ism promise to be profound. Farm boys from Iowa match
crop lore with gardeners in Italy; hillbillies from the Ozarks
haggle with a dragoman at the Pyramids; secondhand shop
dealers from the East Side exchange trade secrets with bazaar

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keepers in Bagdad; cowboys from Montana hobnob noncha-
lantly with tribal chiefs in the South Pacific. If one adds to
this broadening experience of cosmopolitanism the related
experience of breaking down caste lines within our own mili-
tary forces, one sees the final results in terms of a mass ma-
turation on the part of a huge and influential portion of our
national population. It can be only speculative as to what
effect this increase of maturity may have on future policies
and destinies of our nation, but that there will be effects no
one can doubt. It is mundane, indeed, to remark that war is a
leveler of persons, but mundane or not, it is true, and the
breaking down of caste lines among our troops is no small
part of the compensations accruing to military life. The
Midas-endowed student from Harvard’s Gold Coast cannot
share the danger and filth of a foxhole with the tailor from
the slums without each of them coming to know better the
other. The Park Avenue playboy and the sharecropper from
Georgia squirming side by side on patrol in the morass of a
New Guinea jungle develop a camaraderie and a mutual re-
spect based on commonly shared, elemental danger that in
most cases will outlast the experience and carry over into
postwar years. |

The two army psychiatrists, Drs. Maskin and Altman,
whom we quoted earlier in referring to the new soldier’s loss
of individuality, speak of several other compensations that
military life offers to certain men. These particular compen-
sations are unique but to many are profoundly important.
Reference is made to the needs of some men to prove their
masculine virility, to find vicarious revenge for unconsciously
held hatreds, and to establish their prestige.

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“For those who have doubts about their competency as
males, military service provides a means for establishing
the virile role and acquiring needed reassurance. The role
of hero is envisaged essentially to enhance one’s sexual
prestige and prowess. Implicit in this dynamism among
older men is the phantasy of recaptured youth. The Peter
Pan myth is the modus operandi provoking men to deeds
beyond their strength in years. Viewing themselves as dash-
ing and cutting an elegant figure in uniform, they are
rejuvenated.

“War facilitates sadistic-masochistic expression. Since
such behavior is sanctioned in the interests of military ex-
pediency, anxiety related to sado-masochism is mitigated.
The man who has perpetrated homicide in phantasy can
now externalize the act without guilt, and the masochist
may seek a martyr’s wounds or death. Battle provides an
easy occasion for sundry displacements of hostility and kill-
ing in effigy. Hostility, originating in parental or marital
conflict, for example, can be shifted on to the enemy and
his destruction may symbolize vicarious revenge on wife or
parents.

“War is the theatre for prestige in the making, creating
numerous scenes for the emergence of new luminaries. The
common man may metamorphose into the hero, and the
arm-chair strategist into the warrior. Significant numbers
of civilians achieve new-found distinction in positions of
authority as officers, commissioned and otherwise, and con-
comitantly for no small number, the army provides financial
rewards never previously attained. There is opportunity for
special rewards, citations, decorations, honorariums, pro-
motions, and publicity. Military advancement is definitive,

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

readily recognized and responded to by others. In the army
one can ‘get somewhere.’ Moreover, the acquisition of
special skills and training is a vital gain from army educa-
tion. Finally, military service has considerable prestige
value in itself, as evidenced by the feelings of depression
commonly manifested in those who are discharged. Mar-
tial ritual and ceremonials, the dress parade and brass band,
provide glamor which is a significant component of self-
prestige.”

Entrance into military service, then, affected different per-
sonalities in different ways according pretty much to the
kinds of personality equipment they took into service with
them. To all, however, it was a strain of greater or lesser in-
tensity on their capacities for adjustment, and, since a mal-
adjusted soldier is a military liability, it became to the inter-
ests of the authorities to try to prevent or at least to lessen
some of those strains. Some of the ways this was done will be
explained in the following chapter.

SGD ine

4

HOW THE ARMY PREVENTS STRAINS
OF ADJUSTMENT

any other in history. Its action takes place at in-

credible speed. It is ever moving and the antithesis
of the sluggish trench warfare of World War I, when oppos-
ing forces would glare at each other across a narrow strip of
No Man’s Land for inactive months at a time. This war has
been stepped-up through newer considerations of strategy,
but chiefly through the high degree of mechanization that
characterizes it. Fast-moving tanks, dive bombers, rocket
planes, paratroopers, commandos, six-ton block busters, con-
centrated rifle and machine-gun power; all these and many
other innovations not only have made this war different from
past ones but it has imposed quantitative and qualitative
strains on its participants that never before have been paral-
leled. If there is a key word that differentiates this conflict
from former ones, that word is “teamwork,” teamwork not
only between major branches of service such as army, navy,
and air forces, but teamwork all the way down the chain of

6S te

|: MANY respects this war has been utterly unlike

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command to the elementary platoon. Because of this em-
phasis on teamwork the strains and pressures on the indi-
vidual personalities making up the team have had to be care-
fully calculated in advance and steps taken either to lessen
the strains themselves or, if that cannot be done, then to
build up sturdy resistance to them. In planning for this war
military authorities gave recognition to these twin needs, and
one result has been the development of an elaborate system
of morale maintenance.

This system operates through two approaches; one is ad-
dressed to the maintenance of morale of groups of men,
while the other concentrates its activities on the individual.
So far as whole groups of men are concerned good military
morale can be obtained only when there is adequate knowl-
edge of the meaning and significance of this particular war.
Men must know what they are fighting for, the more con-
cretely the better, if they are to put up with hardships, fa-
tigue, disappointments, and frustration. Each of them in a
group must become imbued with a realization that he him-
self is an important and valued unit in his country’s war
effort, if he is to carry on in the face of difficulty, which after
all is the essence of morale. Military authorities realize this
and have put into effect extensive programs of education that
begin almost the first day the newly inducted man arrives at
his training camp and continue throughout his military life.
The methods of this educational program are many but its
objectives are few—the crystallization of national aims and
ideals, the intensification of loyalty and patriotism, and an
emphasizing of the importance of the individual in a de-
mocracy.

The ways in which these objectives are attained are numer-

SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

ous. Since the transition from civilian to military life is usu-
ally but a few days, the lecture hall and the camp newspaper
at the initial training area constitute perhaps the first orien-
tation step. From this point on, while other specific steps are
taken to indoctrinate the man, the procedure is carried out
in literally hundreds of inconspicuous, nonformalized ways.
For example, from general down to corporal officers deliber-
ately endeavor to de-glamorize war and to paint instead an
honest picture of military participation as an opportunity to
discharge one’s patriotic duty. The nature of the enemy, his
psychology, his propaganda methods are described repeatedly,
and the men are taught what to expect along these lines.
Throughout these educational activities runs a common
thread in the form of constant emphasis on the need for
group identification. _

But it is when the program for morale maintenance is
addressed to the individual soldier that its most specific
aspects are seen. In no other war in history has so much at-
tention been paid to the individual man. This is done as a
matter of economical and hardheaded business and not out.
of sentiment. Its purpose is to enable him to carry on long
after he might otherwise be expected to give up. Part of this
program is a negative process devoted to the recognition and
weeding out of misfits, either actual or potential, whose in-
stability might affect their own morale or that of their units,
while another, broader part is a positive one designed to sup-
port and keep at peak efficiency the healthier men.

The weeding-out process began at the induction center,
where psychiatrists skilled in recognizing the nebulous signs
of potential instability or of concealed character fragility re-
jected from fifteen to twenty of every one hundred men re-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

porting for examination. Many of the men so rejected could
undoubtedly have become militarily useful in a protected,
sheltered environment had induction-center psychiatrists
been permitted to classify them for limited service, as was
done in numerous borderline physical defects.

But the War Department made no provision for a limited-
service classification for inductees who had borderline psycho-
logical difficulties, and, since at the time of induction no
one could foresee the type of service to which such a man
might be assigned, no chances were taken. Furthermore, psy-
chiatric examination time was short (three to four minutes
per man) and some latent misfits slipped through. In some
areas of the country there were insufficient psychiatrists to
staff the induction stations and the weeding out of the emo-
tionally unstable had to be left to other physicians without
special psychiatric training.

However, even though a potentially unstable man did slip
through the meshes of the induction process now and then
(and there can be no question but what many did) eagle-
eyed noncoms and commissioned officers were at hand at
every training camp and every receiving station to detect the
early warning signals of personality maladjustment and to do
something about it before it gathered much headway. The
classification and assignment sections of the training camps
were one of the first places where incipient maladjustment
might be uncovered and dealt with by technically directed
assignment to duties in accordance with the man’s abilities
and temperament.

The replacement training center, however, was one of the
earliest proving grounds for the new soldier’s abilities, and

664:

SOUDIE REO, CLIO LAN

there his total personality—his emotional, intellectual, and
physical qualities—came into contact with the army. Because
of the strategic importance of these centers not only for mili-
tary training purposes but also as places where pressures and
strains on the individual soldier could be recognized and per-
haps lessened, a series of unique mental hygiene clinics were
organized.

The first of these was established at the Signal Corps Re-
placement Training Center at Fort Monmouth by Maj.
Harry L. Freedman, a well-known psychiatrist. This clinic
was a counterpart of the mental hygiene or psychiatric clinics
that have become commonplace in many communities
throughout the country. It was staffed by the usual clinical
team of psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, and clinical
psychologists, and it performed the same functions as civilian
clinics do: i.e., attempted to prevent early disorders of per-
sonality or behavior from becoming severe rather than to un-
dertake the treatment or cure of full-blown ones. In terse
military language Major Freedman sets forth the purposes of
this mental hygiene unit in an article published in Mental
Hygiene, the quarterly journal of the National Committee
for Mental Hygiene as follows: |

“The mission of the Mental Hygiene Unit 1s:

(a) To provide mental hygiene facilities to organizations
and officers and assist them with soldiers who present vari-
ous forms of maladjustment such as inaptitude, unusual
behavior, malingering (‘gold-bricking’), recalcitrance, alco-
holism, and others.

(b) To institute such corrective measures as are con-
sidered appropriate to reduce or eliminate the individual's

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SOEDIER®. TO: CiVICIAN

maladjustment and eradicate factors related to the incipi-
ent causes of mental breakdown to the extent necessary for
the soldier to perform military duties.

(c) To determine whether an individual whose case is
brought to the Unit for attention, is either in an assign-
ment that does not utilize his capacities to the fullest pos-
sible extent, or is being trained in a skill beyond his ca-
pacity.

(d) To recommend for discharge from the service such
men, who because of emotional or mental factors cannot
function adequately or who present a hazard to other men.

(e) To provide psychiatric, psychological and social
data and make recommendations to courts-martial and dis-
charge boards.

(£) To aid soldiers who are discharged from the service
to make the transition back to civilian life.”

As will be seen from a reading of the above, the sole con-
cern of the military forces is to find and to keep men fit for
fighting a war. His military usefulness is the only criterion
for retaining a man in service. If he is maladjusted to merely
a minor extent, every effort is made to remedy the condition
and salvage him for continued duty. If the maladjustment is
severe and if its correction is unlikely or if it promises to take
too much time to remedy it, then outright discharge from
military service is the rule.

Illustrative of the method of reassignment recommended
sometimes by the Mental Hygiene Unit as a means of cor-
recting a “round peg in a square hole” situation is the fol-
lowing:

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SOLDIER, TO) CIMILTAN

Private F., a twenty-four-year-old soldier of average in-
telligence and eighth-grade education, who had been a
cow-puncher in civilian life, was referred to the mental-
hygiene unit after a long hospitalization because he had
been placed in limited service due to a knee injury acquired
while in action. He was disturbed over his physical condi-
tion and inclined to put all the responsibility for it upon
the army. With some encouragement, however, he could
take part in the task of locating a job placement for him,
in which, despite his disability, he could function usefully.
As the interviewer considered with him how his experience
might be used in the army, he brought out an interest in
horses and skills‘in harness work. The unit then got into
contact with the officer in charge of the post stables and
arranged an interview. The soldier, at first frightened by the
prospect of the interview, was given encouragement by the
interviewer. After the interview, he was accepted for assign-
ment to the stables. The worker saw the soldier periodically
and helped him with his problem of getting back to a
definite job after a long period of disability. His knowledge
of horses and harness work gained him recognition on the
job and advancement to the rank of technician, fifth grade.

Still another case shows how the Mental Hygiene Unit co-
operates with court-martial boards in disciplinary cases.

Private L. was referred to the unit for evaluation and
recommendation in regard to his having been A.W.O.L.
At the unit, the social worker learned from him that he
had been to the city, had drunk excessively, and could not

regain control of himself until after he had been A.W.O.L.

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SOPDIER LO CLVIEDIAN

for several days. He had been drinking heavily for the last
four years and had several times been on the verge of
delirium tremens. Field investigation indicated that the
soldier had been making an adequate adjustment in his
company, except for his A.W.O.L. incident, and was quali-
fying in the specialized school that he was attending. Psy-
chological examination indicated that he had sufficient
capacity to qualify as a skilled technician, if he could con-
centrate on his training. Further investigation of his home
background was initiated. A report of his civilian adjust-
ment was received from the Red Cross, which verified his
losing jobs frequently and being hospitalized numerous
times because of alcoholism. This report, taken together
with the fact that the soldier had again gone A.W.O.L.,
made it clear that he could not be relied upon to control
his habitual drinking for more than short periods of time.
He was recommended for discharge because of chronic al-
coholism, and such action was effected.

Another court-martial case had a happier ending and illus-
trates how the Red Cross cooperates with the Mental Hy-
giene Unit to preserve a soldier for useful service.

Private D., aged twenty, of average intelligence, was re-
ferred because he was A.W.O.L. for the second time. The
soldier had married just prior to induction. His wife was
pregnant and had been living with his family. The family
now had forced the soldier’s wife out of their home. She
had moved in with her married sister, but she was in poor
health because of her pregnancy and was not able to get
adequate care. Concern over his wife led the soldier to go

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN
A.W.O.L., the only way in which he believed he could
assist her in getting medical care. Discussion with him of
Red Cross facilities resulted in a reference of the case to
the Red Cross worker in the unit, who was able to effect
liaison between the soldier and his wife. Plans were made
for regular contacts between the Red Cross worker and the
soldier in which information could be exchanged and plans
worked out to help him overcome some of his anxiety
about the home situation. The wife was interviewed by a
Red Cross worker in the city, guided in her problem, and
provided with medical care. The soldier felt relieved and
has been able to continue with full effort in his training
and assignment.

Weeding out the misfits is a vital part of the military pro-
gram of morale maintenance. Such individuals not only are
ineficient themselves but they tend to require a dispropor-
tionate amount of their officers’ time, and some, depending
on the nature of their attitudes, breed discontent among their
fellows. Their early recognition and separation from the
service becomes, then, a matter of real importance to the
efficacy of their unit as a whole. One particular kind of mis-
fit is found in what is called the “psychopathic personality.”
Such individuals are to be found in substantial numbers in
every community and every large military unit and they con-
stitute one of the most puzzling and vexing problems with
which society has to deal. ‘These persons are not insane in
any legal sense, nor do most of them possess subnormal in-
telligence. Indeed, many are of definitely superior intellec-
tual attainments. But they display a defect in character for-
mation that in most cases defies the skill of modern science

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

to fill in. Psychiatric textbooks contain many descriptions of
the psychopathic personality, but perhaps one of the most
illuminating is painted in a circular distributed by the War
Department itself among physicians at various induction sta-
tions throughout the country.

“Psychopathic personalities:—In this ill-defined, more or
less heterogeneous group are placed those individuals who,
although not suffering from a congenital defect in the in-
tellectual sphere, do manifest a definite defect in their abil-
ity to profit by experience. They are unable to proceed
through life with any definite pattern of standardized ac-
tivity. ‘hey are unable to respond in an adult social man-
ner to the demands of honesty, truthfulness, decency, and
consideration of their fellow associates. They are emotion-
ally unstable, not to be depended upon; act impulsively
with poor judgment; are always in difficulties, have many
and various schemes without logical basis, lack tenacity of
purpose, are easily influenced and oftentimes in conflict
with the law. They do not take kindly to regimentation
and are continually at variance with those who attempt to
indoctrinate them in the essentials of military discipline.
Such an individual has a decided influence upon his fellow
associates and the morale of his organization, for he will
not conform himself to organized authority and he derives
much satisfaction in cultivating insubordination in others.
Quite frequently he presents a favorable impression, is neat
in appearance, talks well, and is well mannered. However,
under this veneer the real defect is evident by past irre-
sponsiveness to social demands and lack of continuity of
purpose. Among this general group are to be placed many —

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homosexuals, grotesque and pathological liars, vagabonds,
wanderers, the inadequate and emotionally unstable, petty
offenders, swindlers, Kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, alcohol-
ics, and likewise those highly irritable and arrogant indi-
viduals, so-called pseudoquerulents, ‘guard-house lawyers,’
who are forever critical of organized authority and im-
bued with feelings of abuse and lack of consideration by
their fellow men. All such men should be excluded from
the service as far as possible, both because of the difficulties
which these symptoms themselves cause and because of
the fact that such individuals ultimately may develop full-
fledged psychotic states.”

Military reports from all fronts are replete with instances
of combat catastrophes and lowering of company morale
caused by the psychopathic personality, and his discharge
from service as soon as recognized becomes of paramount
importance. Unfortunately, on his return to his home town
the “psychopath” continues to be the same psychopathic per-
sonality he was before he ever entered the army, and he con-
stitutes a goodly percentage of the chronic troublemakers, ©
the “gripers,” the malcontents who may cast a stigma on the ~
whole group of ex-servicemen in any community. After the
last war not a few such psychopaths utilized their aggressive-
ness and external plausibility to force their way into respon-
sible positions in ex-servicemen’s organizations, where their
innate habit of troublemaking created friction and dissension.
So far as treatment or cure of such individuals is concerned,
neither psychiatry nor any other scientific skill has much
hope to offer in their present stage of development. “Once a
psychopathic personality, alwaysa psychopath” seems to be

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the rule, and such personalities promise to continue to be
thorns in the side of the community indefinitely.

The Mental Hygiene Units described in the preceding
pages were not the only methods devised to lessen some of
the strains of adjustment to military life of the new soldier,
and consequently to prevent a number of later breakdowns.
The man in whom you are interested may have been assigned
to an organization where the Advisor System was in effect.
This unique system, under the direction of Maj. S. H.
Kraines, an army psychiatrist, was initiated in the Tank De-
stroyer Replacement ‘Training Center at North Camp Hood,
Texas, in 1943. Its purpose was to enhance military efficiency
and it operated on preventive lines, dealing with individual
maladjustment and with group morale. The situations for
which it was organized are told in Major Kraines’s* own
words:

“Many men who enter have problems related to their
dislocation from civilian routine and to their adjustment
to military service. In addition, there are innumerable men
who were poorly adjusted in their previous relatively stable
community life and whose induction into the army precipi-
tates a host of personal difficulties of an emotional nature.
Some of the problems are easily solved; some are much
more difficult, perhaps the most difficult being those that
stem from the basic instability of the trainee.

“Where can the soldier turn for help? The army pro-
vides a method. According to the ‘Soldier’s Handbook,’ if a
man wishes to see his company commander, all he need do
1“The Advisor System—Prophylactic Psychiatry on a Mass Scale,” Mental

Hygiene, October, 1943.
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is request permission from the first sergeant. Every com-
pany commander, in the interests of his own unit, exerts
continual effort to ferret out those cases that need help,
but as in any large organization, the plan and ideal are
occasionally frustrated. It sounds simple; but in actual
working practice it is occasionally difficult and involved.
Investigation of several cases of men suffering from severe
emotional stresses revealed that they had not sought help
through channels, and being shy and reticent, they gave
up in either disgust or hopelessness. Any delay in thé solu-
tion of a problem arouses varying degrees of disgust, de-
spair, or defiance. Curbstone advice adds to the confusion.
Moreover, the shy and sensitive man, who is often the one
most in need of help, finds it difficult, if not impossible, to
expose his personal anxiety to so many different persons; he
would rather ‘suffer in silence.’ As a consequence, the army
_ also suffers through the decreased efficiency of the soldier,
his loss of ability to concentrate, and so on. It is easy for
disgruntled, disappointed, or distraught men to assume the
attitude of, “To hell with the army! It isn’t interested in
me; why should I be interested in it?’ It is difficult for ~
commanders to appreciate the existence of this spirit when
their men parade smartly in review; but if it exists, it is a
hindrance in training and a definite danger in combat
situation.

“Too often the trainees get ‘the brush off’—evasive, non-
committal answers from noncommissioned officers who are
either indifferent or powerless to help in a particular situa-
tion. T’oo often the sergeant, who is responsible for disci-
pline and who has many urgent and time-consuming du-
ties, is brief and brusque in his answers. Too often, con-

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ditioned and well-adjusted army men dismiss as trivia the
problems that to the raw recruit are of paramount impor-
tance. Too often, in the absence of any easily accessible
source of information, fantastic misinformation in the
form of wild rumors is spread. 7
“There are countless manifestations of this spirit of dis-
quiet and emotional turmoil over unresolved problems.
Some trainees develop neurotic difficulties, and ‘ride the
sick book’ to the point of interfering with training; some
leave camp without permission and become subject to dis-
ciplinary action; some wreak great harm by communicating
to others their spirit of indifference or rebellion; some even
attempt suicide. Inevitably the morale of the whole group
is lowered by the disaffection of its constituent members.”

To deal with this situation the Advisor System utilized
the services of specially trained noncommissioned ofhcers.
Noncoms were chosen purposely’on the basis that they lived
in the same barracks with the trainees, were associated with
them continuously during the training period, and conse-
quently came to know them with a degree of intimacy im-
possible for the commanding ofhcer to establish. Trainees
with “problems” were encouraged to “talk it out” with these
selected noncoms, who were assigned to such service because
of possession of the following qualifications:

“(1) Sufficient army experience so that they ‘know the
ropes’; (2) capacity for common-sense judgment; (3) in-
terest in the work of advising; (4) maturity, usually found
in men somewhat older than the average trainee, that will
inspire confidence; and (5) ‘popularity’—that is, the kind

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of personality that expresses and readily evokes friendli-

9?

ness.

The program was in no sense one of pampering or cod-
dling. On the contrary, its whole purpose was so to toughen
men that they achieved their highest potential military effi-
ciency. Major Kraines cites several case histories to illustrate
something of the variety of the problems for which the non-
coms acted as advisors and to demonstrate the techniques of
solution of those problems.

“A soldier who was extremely disturbed emotionally
came to his advisor and told him that he was ‘beside him-
self’ with worry over what he could do about his mother,
who was insane. Discussion revealed that the mother had
been placed in a state mental institution. After extended
discussion between the advisor and the trainee, it became
obvious that the best possible solution for the mother was
to be in the asylum and that the trainee could in no way
aid her. However, because the soldier was not completely
satisfied, an interview with the company commander was
arranged. Substantially the same suggestions that the ad-
visor had made were given by the company commander.
Private A, who was sympathetically treated and who was
given an honest evaluation of his problem, was able to
make an excellent adjustment instead of having a continu-
ous emotional disturbance that would have impaired his
efficiency as a soldier.”

“Private B, whose wife was due to have a child, re-
quested an emergency furlough; but because of the war

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situation at the time, the request was denied. This denial
was a severe disappointment to the soldier, who began to
drink beer at the post exchange to such an extent that he
would come to the barracks intoxicated. The advisor un-
dertook to look after him. He talked with him frequently
and went along with him on the beer-drinking expeditions.
As a result of conversations with the advisor, Private B
‘woke up’ to the futility of his behavior and ‘snapped out

_ of it.” He became personally loyal to the advisor and there-
after made a good adjustment as a soldier. A significant
side-light in this case is that the advisor, who had pre-
viously been regarded as a ‘hard-boiled old army man,’
improved tremendously as a result of his advisory experi-
ence. He developed greater sympathy and understanding
for his platoon and curbed certain bullying tendencies that
previously had been pronounced.”

“One soldier had a great deal of difficulty in drill, march-
ing, and ‘doing double-time.’ Although he had gone on
sick call, the initial examination had revealed no outstand-
ing pathology, and the soldier was ordered to return to full
duty. The advisor was convinced that Private E was neither
neurotic nor malingering and referred the case through the

company commander to the psychiatric consultant. The
psychiatrist ascertained the fact that Private FE had had in
childhood a fever that was followed by prolonged weakness
of the muscles of the legs. Orthopedic consultation, which
was arranged for, established the fact that this boy had
suffered from infantile poliomyelitis and reclassification for
limited service was arranged.”

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“The advisor referred Private F through the company
commander to the psychiatric consultant. Private F had
been in the company for ten days and had eaten only two
meals during that time. He had not complained and had
continued in his regular activities with the other trainees.
It was only because the advisor was cognizant of the indi-
vidual habits of the men in his section that the case was
reported. On examination it was found that Private F was
suffering from an early schizophrenic psychosis; that he
performed his duties mechanically; that he was not inter-
ested in food; that he ‘fantasied’ greatly; and that he was
suffering from the feeling of persecution. Private F was
referred to the neuropsychiatric ward for further study.”

To some these situations may seem trivial and unworthy
of large-scale methods of treatment. Military experience,
however, has demonstrated over and over again that such
apparently minor situations when continued without abate-
ment and when multiplied by a score or more of similar
situations in each unit are capable of affecting for the worse
the morale of whole groups. These simple, common-sense
methods of treatment are easily invoked in military as well
as in civilian life and the experience of the Advisor System
amply demonstrates their worth. 3

The foregoing offers an admittedly rough picture of why
it is that no nation has ever done more than ours to build and
maintain the morale of its fighting men, both in groups and
in individuals. ‘That it has paid handsome dividends is ap-
parent from the never-ending stream of official reports of
combat efforts carried on long after less well-prepared men

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would have given up. The amazing success of an army made
up mostly of recent civilians in resisting the strains of war-
fare could not have been achieved without the elaborate pro-
grams of morale maintenance described in the preceding
pages.

Despite these efforts, however, the sobering fact remains
that considerable numbers of men did break down in mili-
tary service. Some broke physically, but as many or more
broke psychologically. Some broke at training camps early in
the game, while others broke only under the continued im-
pact of the unspeakable horrors of actual battle. The break-
downs of some were slight, of others severe.

Excluding the battle-wounded, however, and those whose
illness was purely physical, the majority of men who broke
down in military service suffered from one of the many dis-
orders coming under the heading of “psychiatric.” In recent
years, and especially since the outbreak of the war, this term
is seeing frequent usage. No longer is it confined to the pages
of medical textbooks, for the intelligent layman has routinely
included it in his everyday vocabulary. Nevertheless, to many
it still carries some mysterious, half-fearful meaning, and,
since misconception about the term is rife and since if it is
incorrectly interpreted it is apt to bring unmerited alarm or
stigma, we shall see in the next chapter just what a “psychi-
atric handicap” really is.

BLOT! 6

>

SOLDIERS WITH PSYCHIATRIC
DISABILITIES

HAT is this much-talked-about condition, a
\ \ psychiatric disability, that is responsible for
nearly half of all medical discharges from
military service? One wishes that a simple, accurate, and con-
_ cise definition could be offered. Unfortunately, the matter is
so complicated that no such simplicity has yet been achieved.
Perhaps the best that can be done—and even this is over-
simplification—is to say that a psychiatric condition can be
thought of as an impairment of some part (or the function
of some part) of the equipment that helps us adjust to differ-
ent experiences. As a result of this impairment we become
less happy or less efficient than otherwise might be the case.
But if we do not know how to define the term concisely at
least we can explain something about it, even though this
volume is in no sense a medical textbook. Suppose we try to
strip it of some of its mysteriousness and look at it this way:
In the first place, all our life from the day we are born might
be thought of as a process of having to adjust ourselves to
one thing after another. Some of the things that necessitate
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adjustment lie in the external world, while others come from
deep within ourselves. But adjust we must, in some fashion
or other, and the fashions in which we do it are labeled by
society as “healthy” or “unhealthy,” depending on whether
or not they promote acceptable living.

Thus, we find ourselves required to adjust to heat, to cold;
to sickness, to deformity; to people who like us and to those
who don’t; to authority; to secret fears of our own adequacy;
to our limitations and temperaments; to disappointments; to
threats to our self-esteem; and sometimes to dangers to our
very lives. Nature furnished us with three interlocking sets of
equipment with which to make these adjustments: (1) our
physical bodies, with their organs and methods of function-
ing, (2) our individual quota of that quality called “intell-
gence,” and (3) our emotions (or, if you prefer, our feelings).
These three equipments were designed originally to dovetail
into each other and to operate as one harmonious whole, and
all together they go to make up what is termed our “total
personality.” When they do function harmoniously we are
said to be well adjusted. No one of these equipments can be
detached or lifted out of the matrix of the whole and treated
as a separate, isolated unit. If something happens to one piece
of this adjusting equipment, the chances are that the others
also may be thrown out of balance to some degree.

The great integrating system of the body—the Great Ad-
juster—that permits all its internal parts to operate as an
effective whole and that helps adjust the total person to the
demands of his environment is the nervous system. This is an
extremely delicate apparatus whose operative function is not
unlike that of the gyroscope stabilizer attached to the con-
trols of an airplane. Sometimes a strong wind tends to push

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the plane off its level course. The gyroscope goes into action
and by automatically manipulating the controls sets the plane
once more back onto its proper course. Perhaps a downdraft
sucks the plane dangerously near jagged mountain peaks
below; or maybe a vicious air current sends it climbing at
such a steep pitch that a stall or a tail spin is imminent. But
if the gyroscope is on the job it readjusts the controls so that
level flight is again achieved and the plane proceeds on its
mission efficiently. ‘This is, in a sense, what the nervous
system does in helping us to adjust to the forces that impinge
against us and threaten to send us crashing unless we can
right ourselves.

Once in a while, however, a gyroscope is not on the job
and disaster overtakes the plane because an occasional instru-
ment leaves the factory with a hidden flaw or concealed weak-
ness that escaped the inspector’s attention. Once in a while,
also, disaster overtakes a person in making an adjustment to
a certain experience because he may have come into the world
with a nervous system that was defective in some way or was
otherwise unsuitable from the beginning for the job which it
was called on to perform. When these weaknesses in original
structure are present both the defective gyroscope and the
defective nervous system are apt to break down if some un-
usual strain is placed upon them.

Of course, if the plane encounters no powerful cross winds,
and if the owner of the nervous system gets into (or can
make for himself) an environment where he need not be
faced with the necessity for adjusting to any difficult experi-
ences, all goes placidly and the hidden flaws never appear.
But cross winds in the air and difficult experiences in life are
the rule rather than the exception, and sooner or later the

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plane or the owner of a nervous system with a concealed
structural fragility is likely to meet with some unusual condi-
tion that calls for unusual efforts at adjustment. Then the
resulting strain on the adjusting machinery may become so
great that the weakened apparatus is unequal to the task of
absorbing that strain, and the resulting behavior of the ma-
chine as a whole becomes erratic, undependable, or inefhi-
cient.

Some difficulties in adjusting to various experiences in life
are due, therefore, to flaws in the original structure of the
nervous system of certain individuals. More commonly en-
countered, however, are nervous systems that originally were
sound and free from flaws but that, nevertheless, caused
trouble for their owners in adjusting because of the unsuit-
able ways in which they were “set” or broken in during that
process of training in childhood which corresponds to the
test flight of an airplane.

Almost everyone knows that before the new model of a
bomber is sent on its first real mission the pilot takes it up
for a test flight in order to get acquainted with its intricacies
and to see how efficiently it performs the special service for
which it was built. On its return to the ground it is placed
in the hands of skilled mechanics, who straighten out the
kinks revealed in the test flight, which also demonstrated to
the pilot that he must change some of his methods of manip-
ulating if he wishes to get the best results out of this particu-
lar plane. Perhaps the test flight taught him that this bomber,
in contrast to another of the same type, tends to veer a bit to
the left; or that under certain conditions he must feed it more
gas than would be necessary for some other plane; or possi-
bly that this one for some unrecognized reason is an exces-

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sively sensitive plane, reacting overviolently to every gust of
wind out of the ordinary; that for peak performance a light
touch here and a heavy one there is the proper management.
From what he learns in this test flight the pilot is enabled to
set the gyroscope of that particular plane to adjust to most
of the things that might occur to it, although the setting he
gives the instrument might be all wrong for the twin sister
of that plane.

For closely similar reasons the nervous system of an indi-
vidual must be properly “set” or conditioned at the beginning
of life’s long flight (i.e., during the formative years of child-
hood) if the person is to adjust suitably to the different ex-
periences that life is certain to bring to him. This is why the
processes of child training are comparable to the test flights
of the airplane.

When an adult is faced with the need for adjusting to
some experience that comes to him either from the outside
world or from within himself, the success with which he
makes that adjustment is more likely to depend on the kind
of habits or patterns he formed in the past in meeting similar
experiences than it is on any defect in the structure of his
nervous system. These habits or patterns are formed in the
child pretty much as a result of the way his parents train him.
Both for parents and for children it is apt to be a sort of
trial-and-error process. Children not less than adults have to
adjust to many experiences each day, but to them the expen-
ences are new and much experimenting has to be done to find
ways of adjusting to them. To an adult, on the other hand,
experiences that require adjusting to are “old stuff” (simply
because the adult has lived longer and has met more of
them), and he does not haye to do quite so much experi-

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menting with ways of adjustment because by this time the
habits or patterns for meeting them that he evolved during
childhood have now become automatic, i.¢., the same general
type of experience automatically elicits the same general type
of response.

An example may make this clearer, A six-year-old child asks
for a second piece of cake at supper. His mother refuses him
and in so doing creates one of those life experiences we have
been discussing. This particular experience in itself is not very
important, but it is a forerunner of a type of experience that
the boy is going to meet innumerable times as long as he
lives: i.¢., the experience of encountering and having to ad-
just to frustration of some of his desires.

Of course, frustration is only one of a number of the basic
experiences in life that were discussed in Chap. 2, and, like
all experiences, it can be mild or it can be severe. The point
is, however, that the first few times any new experience is
encountered we experiment with methods of dealing with it,
and, when we finally devise one that to us seems satisfactory,
we tend to use that same method every time we meet a
similar kind of experience.

Suppose we see how this works out in the case of the boy
previously mentioned. In response to his mother’s refusal of
the second piece of cake he may not give in gracefully to this
frustration of his desire. Being an averagely determined young-
ster, he tries to outsmart the frustration and perhaps selects
the device of a temper tantrum as the way to do it. He
screams, he lies down on the floor and kicks, and he holds his
breath until he is blue in the face. By means of this behavior
he hopes to get around the frustration and force his mother
to give in by frightening her with the threat of his suffocat-

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ing, or by embarrassing her into yielding through staging the
tantrum when the bridge club is meeting, or possibly by the
age-old childhood method of sheer wearing her down through
incessant whining and teasing. If, as a result of the boy’s
tantrum, his mother does give in and he gets the second piece
of cake, then he would indeed be less than clever if he failed
to try the same device the next time he met the experience
of being frustrated in something. And if the tantrum device
works successfully the second and the third and the fourth
time, the boy need experiment no longer. He has discovered
a way of adjusting to the experience of frustration that serves
his ends, and soon it becomes an automatic habit or pattern
every time he encounters this particular difficulty in life. Nor
does he usually abandon this habit or outgrow it as he gets
older. Why should he, so long as it continues to function?
He carries it with him from childhood into adolescence, and
from that stage of his development into adult years, when by
this time it has been incorporated into the very structure of
his personality.

Of course, as the boy grows older he makes changes in the
outward appearance of the tantrum. He learns, for example,
that at sixteen one does not lie down on the floor and scream
and kick as one did at six, but that there are appropriate dis-
guises that may bring the same results. He learns, further,
that at twenty-six an adolescent manner of staging a tantrum
needs revision into an adult equivalent. But regardless of the
way in which it is expressed it is the same old device he
learned to use in childhood, and so long as it still continues
to influence people into giving-in to him he would not be
sensible to discard it. Now by the time he has become an
adult he has learned to adjust to the experience of frustra-

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tion by outsmarting it with a special type of behavior, namely,
a temper tantrum, no matter how cleverly disguised, and
whenever he meets with frustration he automatically resorts
to this method. In other words, he has developed a habit or
pattern of adjustment that he will endeavor to carry through
life with him so long as people will give in to it as his mother
did.

A crude tantrum is only one of many ways of dealing with
some frustration of our desires. Instead, we can, if we think
it stands a better chance of succeeding, sulk and pout in the
hope of making the person who frustrates us feel sorry and
give In; or we can retreat into a hurt silence and brood and
try to punish the person by not speaking for a day or two;
or we can accuse him of not liking us, of discriminating
against us, or of just plain wanting to be mean to us. It
makes little difference what method we unconsciously select
to combat the frustration so long as it works. The meaning
and also the purpose of the behavior are identical no matter
what guise it takes. |

Like many other apparently successful modes of behavior
in life there is a catch in this temper-tantrum method. Be-
cause it worked so successfully during childhood when it was
used against the family who loved him, and because by this
time this particular way of adjusting to the experience of
frustration had become a habit, the adult naturally expects
it will work with equal success against other people. Here is
where the catch comes in. Sooner or later (and for his own
ultimate good we hope sooner) he encounters a frustration
at the hands of someone who does not particularly love him;
who, indeed, may not care a rap about him. Worse yet, the
frustration may come, not from a person at all, but from

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some immovable impersonal fact in life, like being separated
(through death or distance) from an overprotective, pamper-
ing mother on whom he still retains an infantile dependency;
or having insufficient money for a college education; or having
to submit to a painful surgical operation; or being refused en-
listment in the army because of weak eyes or a damaged
heart, etc., ad infinitum.

When the boy or the adult he may have grown into meets
the stone wall of frustrations like these he is bewildered. Here
at last is an experience in life that refuses to yield, as his
mother did, to the tried and proven habit of a tantrum.
Neither the frontal assaults of rages and storming nor the
flank attacks of pouting and sulking budge the experience an
inch. The oversolicitous mother to whom he was attached in
such infantile fashion and who subsequently died will not re-
turn to life in response to his most frantic appeals to her
sympathy; the weak heart that keeps him out of the army
will not miraculously become strong no matter how he blus-
ters at the induction center doctor; and the needed surgical
operation will not become unneeded as a result of his raging
denials. He is bewildered, he is angry, but most of all he is
afraid. His former sense of omnipotence is threatened; his
delusion that he could proceed gaily through life always side-
stepping frustration through use of his tantrum device is
shattered, and since perhaps he had never learned any other
method he becomes filled with anxiety.

If this man’s immutable frustration is, after all, not too im-
portant, his resulting anxiety may be only mild and merely
annoying instead of incapacitating. But if the frustration hap-
pens to be one of vital significance to him, or if his former
pattern of dealing with it had become so deeply embedded in

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his personality that this had grown rigid and inflexible, then
his anxiety may mount to a panic that cripples his social and
personal effectiveness in direct ratio to its intensity.

With this roundabout preamble we are now ready to get
back to the discussion of “what is a psychiatric condition?”
with which this chapter was opened, It was suggested that a
psychiatric condition could be thought of as an impairment
of some part (or the function of some part) of the equip-
ment that helps us adjust to different experiences, so that as
a result of this impairment we become less happy or less effi-
cient than otherwise might be the case. Further, it was
pointed out that the nervous system is the integrating force
that helps various parts of our adjusting equipment to oper-
ate harmoniously and thus to keep us well-adjusted people.

When the boy cited as an example finally met with an
experience of frustration that refused to yield to the only
method of persuasion he knew, an impairment of part of his
adjusting machinery was brought about; the feelings of anger
and anxiety that arose out of being thwarted caused him to
become less happy than he might have been had he been
permitted to learn healthier ways of dealing with frustration
through wiser methods of child training, and the behavior he
used as a means of expressing those feelings caused his per-
sonal and social adjustment to become likewise less satisfac-
tory. In other words, the boy found himself suffering from a
psychiatric condition.

But, readers may object, how can this be? Does not the
word “psychiatric” refer to insanity? And, surely, the boy dis-
cussed is not insane? Of course he is not insane, and the
chances are he will never become so, but a psychiatric condi-

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tion describes a multitude of departures from average happi-
ness and efficiency of less severity than insanity. After all, if
someone tells us that Frank Smith is sick, we do not neces-
sarily jump to the conclusion that he has tuberculosis or
cancer. He might merely be a little unhappy and less able
than usual to concentrate on his work because he is all stuffed
up from a cold in the head. In a few days, probably, he will
be as well as ever, provided that complications do not set in.
So also may the boy’s psychiatric condition clear up after a
bit, again provided that complications do not arise in the
form of an experience too frustrating for his equipment to
adjust to, or provided that his personality is not too rigid to
adapt. Just as there are many kinds of physical sickness, so are
there many varieties of psychiatric ones. For every psychiatric
condition so malignant as to deserve the label “insanity”
there are hundreds of others ranging upward in mildness to
mere prejudices, quirks, or sensitivities so inconspicuous as to
pass almost unnoticed. Nevertheless, in a technical sense at
least even the mildest of these conditions represents some im-
pairment of its owner’s happiness and efficiency as a social
unit and therefore fulfills the sketchy requirements that con-
stitute a psychiatric condition.

Not only are there many, many different kinds of psychi-
atric conditions, but they masquerade under many different
guises. One (a very severe one) may appear as insanity.
Another may be expressed as more-than-average moodiness
or gloominess or chronic suspiciousness. A third may adopt
the disguise of physical symptoms that mislead the owner—
and others, too, for that matter—into believing he has heart
disease or stomach disease or some other organic trouble.
Still another may manifest itself as a compulsion to step on

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every crack in the sidewalk or to count fence pickets or to
wash the hands a certain number of times. ‘Then there are
other kinds of psychiatric disorders that emerge in the form
of antisocial behavior, such as certain instances of delin-
quency, crime, and other unethical practices.

Over and above all these are myriad other disguises for
psychiatric disorders so (apparently) within the bounds of
normality that few ever think of them as having a psychiatric
significance. For example, there is the man who has a preju-
dice against redheaded people so strong—if illogical—that he
prefers to limp along in the office with an incompetent black-
haired secretary than to hire an efficient red-haired one. There
is the woman whose friends dread to visit her because they
have learned that her feelings are so inordinately sensitive
that they are always being hurt; she reads slights and innu-
endoes into every conversation and is perpetually certain that
people are aiming to take advantage of her. Then we have
the man whose secret feelings of inferiority cause him to de-
velop a protective outer manner of pugnacity, a chip-on-the-
shoulder philosophy toward others, and a cruel ruthlessness
designed to get the best of the other fellow before the latter
gets the best of him.

These are but microscopic fragments of the attitudes many
people carry through life with them, which make them a little
less happy than they might be and a little less efficient as
good citizens and neighbors. ‘The owners of these little pecu-
liarities of personality as well as their friends would be indig-.
nant were their mannerisms to be labeled as “psychiatric.”
Nevertheless, the unpalatable fact must be faced that within
the meaning of the explanation in this chapter these mild
peculiarities have come into being as an expression of some

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impairment of the owner’s adjusting equipment and there-
fore are psychiatric despite the manner of their disguise.

The causes for psychiatric disorders likewise vary as much
as the causes for physical ones. Typhoid fever has a different
cause from an ulcer of the stomach, and clogged-up sinuses
are likely to have little in common with the origins of vari-
cose veins. By the same token, the causes for general paresis
are utterly different from the causes of schizophrenia (two of
the different severe psychiatric conditions or insanities). And
the processes of aging that precipitate senile dementia are apt
to be quite different from those that cause a man to develop
an alcoholic psychosis.

Not all, by any means, of the causes for psychiatric condi-
tions have been discovered as yet, and for the originating
factor in some we are as much in the dark as we are at this
stage of scientific knowledge about the causes for cancer.
Some psychiatric conditions are caused by—or, at least, are
accompanied by—physical diseases or alterations of physical
processes. General paresis, just mentioned, is one of these,
and is caused by syphilis of the central nervous system, in
which actual damage to brain structure can be demonstrated
on autopsy. Delirium tremens resulting from long-continued
and excessive use of alcohol is another. The second-childhood
and the vagaries of memory and mood of the senile who
suffers from hardening of the arteries of the brain is still a
third.

Where the cause for a psychiatric condition is known to
result from some physical disease, we call it an “organic”
psychiatric condition. Most psychiatric conditions, however,
do not spring from any discoverable physical cause although
sometimes their symptoms partake of a physical coloring.

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Where no physical cause can be demonstrated a psychiatric
condition is labeled as “functional,” i.e., the function of part
or all of the total personality, rather than the physical struc-
ture of an organ, is impaired. The overwhelming majority of
soldiers who return from military service with some psychi-
atric condition suffer from one of these functional types of
disorder without actual physical or organic involvement.

If the causes for psychiatric disorders and their grades of
severity differ as much as physical disorders do, it will be seen
that the treatment likewise must vary as widely. ‘The treat-
ment of appendicitis is not the same as for tuberculosis, nor
is the treatment of schizophrenia (dementia praecox) very
much like the treatment of general paresis. Since the precise
cause for numerous psychiatric conditions is not yet known,
treatment often has to be limited to treatment of the symp-
toms that the condition has aroused. This is not scientific
medicine, to be sure, but it is the best we can do with our
present knowledge, and it must be admitted that even treat-
ment of symptoms results astonishingly often in relief.

The technical language used in describing psychiatric dis-
orders adds to the layman’s confusion about the whole sub-
ject. Schizophrenia, manic-depressive, psychoneurosis, obses-
sive-compulsive states, superego, oligophrenia—these are all
tongue twisters that seem strange and mysterious, largely be-
cause psychiatry is one of the youngest of the medical special-
ities and its terminology has not yet had time to become in-
corporated into the vocabulary of the layman (or, for that
matter, of a good many physicians). But perhaps in time
schizophrenia or psychoneurosis or conversion hysteria may
become as commonplace words in the verbal equipment of

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the man in the street as tuberculosis or poliomyelitis or ar-
thritis. :

In the meantime, few of these technical terms need be
used in everyday conversation if we limit ourselves to describ-
ing behavior instead of attempting to pin complicated diag-
nostic labels on the conditions that produce the behavior.
One possible exception to this may be the word “psycho-
neurosis,” which has been bandied about so extensively in
World War II. Psychiatrists themselves have differing defini-
tions and differing understandings of this term, which depend
on what type of psychiatric training they have had. Most of
them, however, restrict psychoneurosis to a special kind of
nervous disorder in which conflict between warring parts of
the unconscious mind (for example, conflict between the ego
and the repressed forces of the libido) is the principal causa-
tive factor. Among the general public, however, the term
“psychoneurosis” is a scrap-basket term into which is dumped
almost any and every kind of psychiatric condition, from the
severest insanity to the mildest eccentricity of personality.
In military usage it threatens to become the current substi-
tute for the outmoded and abandoned “shell shock” of 1918.
For practical purposes, therefore, it has come to mean
nothing at all and in everyday conversation might well be
discarded. This has been made easier to do since military
authorities in the spring of 1944 officially dropped the term
“psychoneurosis” on the discharge papers of men about to
be separated from military service because of some psychi-
atric condition and substituted instead the much more sensi-
ble phrase “unsuited for military service.”

There is at present a widespread but cruelly unjustified
stigma with which so many otherwise kindly and intelligent

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persons surround any aspect of the word “psychiatric.” ‘This
quite unmerited stigma causes the families of many persons
who are ill with a mental disorder to adopt a “hush-hush”
attitude in public about the sick man. If his illness is of a
type that can best be treated in a special hospital for such
disorders, the family are evasive when asked where the patient
has gone. Perhaps they reply that he is visiting relatives and
taking a rest or maybe they say he has entered some general
hospital for a checkup. All too frequently they lack the cour-
age to tell the truth: that he has become sick with a sickness,
whose symptoms are in the realm of the mind rather than
exclusively of the body and that, like any sensible person
whose illness stands a better chance of getting well by going
to a hospital, he has entered a psychiatric hospital for the
special treatment he needs.

There is no more disgrace in having a mental illness than
a physical one. True, a vicious old legend would have it that
a mental disorder (i.e., a psychiatric one) points to a skele-
ton in the family closet of heredity or that it somehow indi- —
cates a shameful weakness of will on the part of the patient.
Indeed, unbelievable as it may sound, there are still many
people who sincerely remain under the influence of that
medieval superstition that an insane person is one whose
mind has been taken possession of by demons or evil spirits.
After all, insanity is merely one of many different varieties of
psychiatric illness. It is a legal, not a medical, term, and all
it means is that the man or woman so labeled has a type of
illness severe enough to affect his judgment and his behavior
to a degree that makes it desirable for others to take over his
decisions for him. This is done by means of a legal process
known as “commitment,” which gives him his chance to get

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well in a suitable hospital. The process of commitment is
often necessary because the patient’s disordered state of mind
may so affect his judgment that he does not know what is
best for him and consequently may resist hospital treatment.

As was indicated in preceding pages, a great many people
display some type of mental or psychiatric disorder, but in
only about one out of twenty of these does this disorder merit
the name of “insanity.” “A disorder is a mental disorder if
its roots are mental,” said the late Dr. C. Macfie Campbell,
professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School? Dr.
Campbell goes on to say:

", + . 4 headache indicates a mental disorder if it comes
because one is dodging something disagreeable. A pain in
the back is a mental disorder if its persistence is due to
discouragement and a desire to have a sick benefit, rather
than to put one’s back into one’s work. Sleeplessness is a
mental disorder if its basis lies in personal worries and
emotional tangles. . . . Discontent with one’s environ-
ment is a mental disorder if its cause lies, not in some ex-
ternal situation but in personal failure to deal with one’s
own emotional problems. Suspicion, distrust, misinterpre-
tation: all these are mental disorders when they are the dis-
guised expression of repressed longings into which the per-
son has no clear insight. Stealing sometimes indicates a
mental disorder: the odd expression of under-lying conflicts
in the person’s mind, or of discouragement, inability to
meet situations, lack of interest in the opportunities avail-
able. . . . Unsociability, marital incompatibility, alcohol-

* Modern Conception of Mental Disorder, Harvard University Press, Cam-
bridge, Mass.
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ism, an aggressive, embittered social attitude; all these and
more may indicate a disorder of mental balance which may
be open to modification.”

It will be seen from what has just been said by Dr. Camp-
bell that few if any of these manifestations of mental disorder
can be considered as evidence of insanity, even though they
all fall within the classification of “mental.” Suppose we look
further and see what kind of people display these mental dis-
orders. Says Dr. Campbell in continuing:

“. . We have now reviewed the sort of human mate-
rial which is before us when we try to frame a general con-
ception of mental disorders. It is a variegated group. It in-
cludes respectable bankers peevish with their wives; scrupu-
lous house-wives with immaculate—and uncomfortable—
homes; children with night-terrors, and all sorts of way-
ward reactions; intellectuals, esthetes; delicate and refined
invalids who are evasive and tyrannical with manifold
symptoms and transitory dramatic episodes—it also in-
cludes patients delirious with fever, or reduced by a great
variety of organic diseases; patients frozen with melan-
choly or indulging in an orgy of exuberant activity; patients
living in a fantastic world with morbid visions and com-
munications and uncanny influences, in whose universe
one sees no coherence or logical structure; patients keenly
logical and argumentative but embittered and seeing
around them a hostile world with which they refuse to
compromise.”

At one time or another there are few of us who do not
justify inclusion somewhere in this list, but if or when we do,
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it does not necessarily mean we are insane. Nor does it mean
that merely because our difficulty in adjusting to life bears the
label of “mental” or “psychiatric,” we should be stigmatized.
It is a curious commentary on human nature that in this day
and generation it is eminently respectable to have a “nervous
breakdown” but that the label “‘psychoneurosis’” automati-
cally relegates its owner into a group of crazy people.

Let us discard, then, our fear of the word “mental” or
“psychiatric” and try to see the man or woman who is ill
with one of these conditions as not different fundamentally
from ourselves. Nor let us assume that “once insane, always
insane’ and consequently look with secret distrust on a re-
covered patient for an outbreak of renewed symptoms. As a
matter of fact, many people do recover from psychiatric dis-
abilities, even from the severe ones, the so-called “insanities.”
In any modern and well-conducted mental hospital up to as
many as forty-five out of every one hundred patients who are
admitted during the course of a year are discharged as cured
within a year. Most of these persons resume their family and
business lives as efficiently as before, and for all practical pur-
poses no one would know that they had ever been mentally |
sick. To be sure, some are permitted by their families to
come to the hospital only when their illness has reached such
an advanced stage that reversal of their condition is improb-
able, and these are likely to remain.

‘The same thing is true with regard to certain physical ill-
nesses. ‘The earlier any condition of sickness is recognized and
the earlier that proper treatment is invoked, the more likely
are the chances of cure. A patient who is brought to a hos-
pital for the first time when he is suffering from the final
stages of tuberculosis or of cancer is apt to be incurable, and

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the best that can be hoped for is to make his declining days
as comfortable as possible.

New methods of treatment are performing wonders for
psychiatric conditions, and the percentage of recoveries
is rising steadily as scientific knowledge of these conditions
progresses. Indeed, today it is oftener easier to cure some of
the troublesome and even crippling conditions of psychoneu-
rosis than it is to effect a cure for rheumatism or high blood
pressure. A hopeless attitude, therefore, toward most psychi-
atric disorders is not justified any more than is the stigma
with which so many of these are surrounded.

With this background we are now ready to discuss how a
psychiatric disability affects the discharged or returned sery-
iceman. In the first place, suppose for the sake of clarity we
attempt to draw up a rough classification of the more com-
mon psychiatric disorders that discharged soldiers may bring
back with them. While neither complete nor scientifically
quite accurate, the following will do for our purpose. In the
order of their severity we can divide them into six groups.

Group I. The insanities or psychoses, as they are called
officially. As stated previously, these are comparatively few in
number, and, since most of them will require care in mental
hospitals, they are not apt to be much of an immediate com-
munity problem of readjustment on their return.

Group II. The feeble-minded (called the mentally “8
fective). ‘These are men whose intelligence has failed to de-
velop in average fashion. They are neither insane nor psycho-
neurotic but are defective from birth or early life in one of
their basic articles of adjusting equipment, namely, their in-
telligence. Few will require institutional care on their return

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home, but their limitations of smartness, judgment, etc.,
should be recognized and care taken to ensure that they are
not called upon for more in the way of responsibility and of
work and family adjustment than they are equipped to give.
They need a long-time protected and relatively pressureless
environment, since their difficulty is caused by a defect that
is irreversible rather than by an illness of a previously sound
structure.

Group III. The psychopathic personalities. These persons
are not insane, nor are they feeble-minded. They are apt,
however, to be continuously antisocial in their behavior, and
their difficulty would seem to lie in some deep-seated distor-
tion of character that is seldom successfully treatable by any
means yet known. Their family and community adjustment
is likely to be stormy and often criminal.

Group IV. Structural diseases of the nervous system. These
include men who display physical or mental symptoms (or
both) as a result of damage to the brain or other portions of
the nervous system. The damage may have been caused by
disease, such as syphilis of the central nervous system, or it
may have been produced by injury, such as a fractured skull
or concussion. Not a few persons suffering from head injury,
for example, whether obtained in combat or in an accident,
undergo various changes in personality that may affect their
community adjustment to a greater or lesser extent.

Most returned servicemen with some damage to the physi-
cal structure of a part of their nervous system will require
active medical treatment, but the majority probably will not
be in need of institutional care and can be treated at home
or in their physician’s office. In some cases the personality or
emotional symptoms will persist long after all signs of ex-

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ternal physical damage have disappeared, and these may
gradually shade off into a chronic type of disorder in which
the symptoms arrange themselves into certain constellations —
(groups of symptoms), to which the term “post-traumatic
syndrome” is given.

Epilepsy probably should be included in this classification
of structural diseases of the nervous system, although, strictly
speaking, there are many cases of epilepsy in which no dam-
age of any kind can be discovered in the brain or central
nervous system. “Epilepsy” is a word used to designate cer-
tain types of convulsions or fits. A convulsive seizure can be
caused by any one of a number of different reasons, of which
physical damage to the brain is only one. A brain tumor can
cause an epileptic seizure, and so can some kinds of gunshot
wounds or other injuries to the skull. Perhaps a majority of
convulsive seizures labeled “epilepsy” come from admittedly
unknown causes (so-called “idiopathic” epilepsy).

Unless the seizures are very severe and very frequent, or
unless they are accompanied by profound and sweeping
changes in personality that produce antisocial behavior, most
returning servicemen suffering from this malady will not re-
quire institutional care. ‘They will, however, require very care-
ful vocational placement in jobs specially chosen to avoid the
danger of falling during a seizure and becoming tangled up
in machinery or of becoming injured in some other fashion
during an interval of unconsciousness. Given such protection
and understanding, many—perhaps even most—servicemen
suffering from epilepsy can be helped to lead useful and
satisfying lives.

The outlook for cure depends on many factors, including
the cause of any given case. In general, the treatment of epi-

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lepsy is the treatment of its cause. But even in those cases
where the precise cause is unknown (the idiopathic types)
much is being done these days in controlling the frequency
and intensity of the seizures. Moreover, not a few cases clear
up. spontaneously as time goes on, although no one knows
why. The families of servicemen with a diagnosis of epilepsy
should not take a hopeless attitude toward the patient, since
medical science is constantly adding to its understanding of
this condition and, therefore, constantly improving its
methods of treatment.

Group V. The combat fatigue disorders. ‘These are emo-
tional disorders characterized principally by various displays
of anxiety or confusion or depression that occur in basically
normal and stable persons. Mention was made earlier of some
battle conditions so overpoweringly horrible that no human
being could be expected to stand up under them without
eventual breakdown. Prolonged thirst, hunger, exposure to
cold or humid heat, lack of sleep, the need for taut nerves to
be incessantly on the alert twenty-four hours a day, for days
on end, with death lurking behind each tree or boulder—the
accumulated impact of these things can and does wear down
the strongest adjustment equipment. When this happens
nerves go; previously sturdy and stable personalities break
down and perhaps cry like babies, scream, or pull blankets
over their heads, temporarily lose their memory, or lapse into
lethargy or states of comalike depression.

Fortunately, most of these instances of combat fatigue re-
cover from their acute manifestations fairly quickly, especially
if psychiatric first-aid facilities are available, and a surprising
number are returned to duty; either a resumption of combat
duty or other duties in less exposed areas. The miracles of

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sulfa drugs, plasma, and first-aid battle dressings in keeping
down the numbers of deaths from combat wounds have been
one of the spectacular phenomena of World War II. If less
publicized and less spectacular, the success with which mili-
tary psychiatrists prevent cases of combat fatigue from be-
coming chronic disabilities through immediate and active
treatment is equally miraculous. Some cases, to be sure, te-
spond sluggishly and require evacuation to the States for more
extensive treatment than can be given overseas. Most, how- |
ever, as just stated are restored to duty of some kind within
an astonishingly short space of time.

In World War I many of the psychiatric conditions that
are now called “combat fatigue” were designated as “shell
shock.” ‘That term was abandoned since it was discovered
that only a small percentage of the men suffering from this
kind of reaction had ever been exposed to shell fire. Indeed,
there were more such cases among troops who had never left
their training camps on this side than among those overseas.
Furthermore, “shell shock” was a catch-all term into which
was dumped almost any and every kind of psychiatric condi-
tion that occurred in a military setting. It was used indiscrim-
inately, on the one hand to designate psychoneurotic reac-
tions in servicemen who had been unstable for years prior
to entering the army and who broke down within a few
weeks of. service, and on the other to describe the acute
anxiety terrors of men in actual battle. For a time after the
close of the last war “shell shock” achieved a sort of honorary
distinction somewhat akin to that which now surrounds the
term “nervous breakdown” when applied to a civilian.

In World War II military authorities are making a more
sensible differentiation between various types of psychiatric

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conditions as seen among soldiers and sailors, with the result
that “combat fatigue” is reserved to describe a special emo-
tional disorder occurring only among men who fulfill two
requirements: (1) the man must have been emotionally sound
prior to the onset of his disorder, with no latent predisposi-
tion toward instability in his previous life history, and (2) his
condition of combat fatigue must have arisen in a setting of
actual battle or shortly thereafter.

Group VI. The psychoneurotic. The overwhelming ma-
jority of servicemen returning home with a psychiatric dis-
ability come within this category, which in turn can be
broken down into several subdivisions. It is, indeed, a loosely
used term but includes those suffering with anxiety states,
either acute or chronic; those with psychosomatic’ disorders
(functional conditions that reproduce symptoms suggestive
of disease of some physical organ without that organ’s actu-
ally being damaged); those with obsessive thoughts or com-
pulsive actions; and those with numerous fears and phobias.
_ Unlike the soldier who develops a combat-fatigue disorder
as described in Group V above, the ex-serviceman returning
home with a psychoneurosis is likely to have been predis-
posed to emotional instability long before he entered mili-
tary service. ‘his is not invariably true, but some previously
unsuspected and latent predisposition has been found in such
large numbers of men discharged with a diagnosis of psycho-
neurosis that up to July, 1944, military authorities have re-
garded only 20 per cent of this group’s disabilities as being
entirely caused by their military duties.

While anxiety states represent one of the major subdi-
visions of psychoneurosis, yet any psychoneurotic condition
can be—and often is—accompanied by some manifestation of

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anxiety. Anxiety, that vague uncomfortable feeling that some-
thing unpleasant is hanging over our heads without our being
able to say just what it is, is probably present in dilute form
in us all at any given moment. Its origins are none too well
known, but some psychiatrists are inclined to believe it stems
from our feelings of hatred and aggressiveness that are
aroused whenever we are frustrated in some of our desires.
Since everyone is frustrated in something or other many times
each day, anxiety in at least mild form is likely to be ever-
present. Ordinarily, we drain off our trivial anxieties by over-
coming our frustrations or by philosophically accepting them,
and the anxiety is dispelled without markedly affecting our
adjustment.

Once in a while, however, we reach a point where pressure,
frustration, or deprivation becomes so strong that it cannot
be tolerated. On such occasions we may react with inner
feelings of hatred and aggressiveness so violent that they
frighten us when we intuitively sense what might happen by
way of retaliation if we turned that aggressiveness outward
against those persons or things that frustrate us. Therefore,
since we are civilized and God-fearing people, the very in-
tensity of our hatred creates anxiety, which comes from expec-
tation of punishment for toying with the temptation to loosen
the inhibitions that help us maintain our standards of per-
sonal and social acceptability. As a consequence, instead of
directing our aggressive feelings outward against others, we
turn them inward destructively against ourselves. ‘Thus are
produced associated feelings of guilt, of depression, and of
tension.

Anxiety may appear in acute form in such stark, unmistak-
able terms as terror or even panic, but by the time a service-

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man returns home after being discharged for some psychiatric
condition, which perhaps is characterized by anxiety, the
acute manifestations likely have subsided into chronic ones.
Nevertheless, under the spur of renewed pressures arising out
of attempts to make a civilian adjustment, and out of re-
newed frustrations or deprivations of psychological . needs,
chronic anxiety is capable of flaring up once more into acute
displays. So-called “startle reactions” over sudden noises or
sudden movements are one example of such flare-ups.

One of the most troublesome ways in which anxiety may
select (unconsciously, of course) to make itself known is
through some psychosomatic condition: i.e., through some
set of physical symptoms. Returned servicemen who eXpress
their anxiety in this way, as a result of the difficulties of ad-
justing to the frustrations of civilian living, are apt to be im-
patiently called “hypochondriacs” and to be accused of
suffering from imaginary illness.

Actually, their illness is not imaginary; on the contrary, it
is very real and very painful, and they are genuinely miser-
able, but it is an illness of the man’s feelings and not one
of the particular organ of the body that appears to be af-
fected. For example, Joe is discharged from the service with a
diagnosis of “Psychoneurosis—anxiety—referable to heart” be-
cause military life caused him to complain of weakness on
exertion, palpitation of his heart, shortness of breath, and
pains in his chest. These symptoms often are found in people
who have actual valvular disease of the heart or whose cardiac
muscles are physically damaged, but they can be found also
in others whose hearts have been examined repeatedly by
competent specialists and declared sound and in excellent
condition. How, then, explain Joe?s heart symptoms?

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If Joe’s heart symptoms happen to be an expression of
anxiety they might be explained in this way: If Joe was in
New Guinea ana unexpectedly encountered a Jap slithering
toward him in the grass of the jungle with rifle pointed at
him, Joe would, of course, be afraid. Any of us would. As a
result of his quite understandable fear Joe’s heart would
probably begin to pound and beat rapidly (palpitate); he
would grow pale and breathless; his insides would constrict
and tie themselves into knots; and he would feel weak. In
other words, Joe would feel or show many of the normal
manifestations of fear. Despite the fact, however, that many
of these manifestations involved functions of his heart, Joe’s
heart as an organ of his body was still as sound and husky
as it was before he met the Jap. It was merely the way his
heart operated that produced the symptoms, and when he
had safely finished off the Jap they disappeared.

But perhaps the particular Joe in whom we are interested
had never been in New Guinea and had never met a Jap.
Perhaps he never got further in military life than a few
months in a training camp in Tennessee or Georgia or Vir-
ginia. Nothing of an especially acute nature had occurred in
camp to frighten him; nevertheless he, too, developed many
symptoms that at least outwardly resembled symptoms of the
heart disease that Joe in New Guinea had. In this case pet-_
haps our Joe was just naturally unsuited to military life.
Perhaps he was one of those immature personalities, dis-
cussed in a previous chapter, whose need to be protected,
fussed over, and taken care of by a doting mother was so
great that it was frustrated by the impersonal life of the army,
that he could no longer face the responsibility of functioning
on his own, and that he felt progressively more insecure.

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As-a result of these feelings Joe grew apprehensive, only
instead of developing into fear, his feelings about it all fell
into that category of apprehensiveness called “anxiety.” It
wasn't a Jap sniper who caused it, but his own inner lack of
emotional maturity. So, because he was anxious, Joe’s heart
began to act like the heart of anyone frightened by some more
tangible, physical danger; it beat rapidly, it caused shortness
of breath, it made him feel weak, and it gave him pains in his
chest. But his physical heart organ remained sound. This is
what Joe found it hard to believe no matter how many doc-
tors tried to reassure him.

“If my symptoms are referable to my heart,” Joe figured,
“it stands to reason that my heart must be affected.” So long
as the frustration of his need to be protected by his mother
continued, his symptoms of “heart” disease (i.e., his anxiety )
continued likewise. Of course, Joe’s reasoning was faulty, but
until he could be helped to mature so that he could stand on
his own feet without maternal support or, if his immaturity
was too great for this, until he was restored to his mother’s
bosom, Joe’s heart symptoms could not be expected to sub-
side. Joe was suffering from one of the psychoneuroses which
is termed a “psychosomatic disorder”: i.e., his feelings affected
the functioning of an organ of his body to an extent that
made him unsuitable for military service.

In doing this Joe must not be thought of as a malingerer
or “gold-bricker.” He definitely did not fake his symptoms in
order to get out of the army. The mechanisms that produced
Joe’s heart symptoms operated in the unconscious part of his
mind, and he was honestly both unaware of and puzzled by
their results. It would be both cruel and unfair to accuse him
of deliberately manufacturing his disability out of whole

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cloth. His illness was not imaginary, and the discomfort he
felt from his symptoms was very genuine. Consequently, he
should be treated like any other sick person in whom the
discovery of the causes of his sickness and the treatment of
these causes, rather than treatment merely of the symptoms,
become the scientific way of going about restoration to
health.

Not all emotional disorders are destructive in their effects.
Sometimes they are the reason why a person becomes a great
painter or musician or humanitarian, and sometimes psychia-
trists deliberately refrain from advising treatment of them on
the basis that “to cure a neurosis might spoil a poet.” Dr.
George S. Stevenson, Medical Director of the National Com-
mittee for Mental Hygiene, makes this interesting comment
about the positive and negative value of a psychoneurosis:

“I am very anxious that in any public interpretation of
the neurosis that the negative aspects of this condition be
balanced with an appreciation of the fact that it frequently
has its positive side. It is a form of personality develop-
ment, characterized by special focalized sensitivity and re-
activity. Sometimes this sensitivity may be so keen as to
completely incapacitate the person. More frequently, how-
ever, he is only partially handicapped by it and in some re-
spects, and often at the same time, it may be a positive
asset and may be the basis of a talent that is responsible
for his social contribution and personal satisfaction. _

“I recently encountered an instance in which this ap-
peared quite clearly in a man who had been discharged
from the service. This man had worked for 12 years in a
position almost devoid of contact with human beings. He

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disliked his job and wanted to be rid of it, but showed his
maturity by deciding to hold on to it until he had prepared
himself for something better. This man had a specially
focalized sensitivity to the life problems of people and it
is understandable that his job gave him little satisfaction
because it touched upon this sensitivity so little. It is sig-
nificant that he used his spare time to prepare himself for
the field of social work at a nearby university. In the midst
of this professional training he was drafted and in the latter
part of basic training had to be discharged for psycho-
neurosis. He became terribly upset about rifle practice
where a special point was made of focusing each shot on a
Jap or a German. He lost sleep, ate poorly and became so
unable to function that discharge was inescapable. The so-
cial work was the positive expression of his sensitivity. The
rifle practice and its effects were the negative. After dis-
charge he returned to his job, resumed his training and
with one exception seemed to be functioning at his pre-
service level. The exception was that he had a piece of
paper with the word ‘psychoneurosis’ on it and that wor-
ried him. In discussing the matter with him it became
evident to him that to lose the sensitivity that had broken
him down in the army, if it could be accomplished would
mean to lose the interest in social work out of which he
hoped to derive both satisfaction and social contribution.
He chose to retain his ‘neurosis.’ ”

The particular serviceman in whom we are interested may
be one of the hundreds of thousands who return home before
the ending of the war by reason of a discharge for psychiatric
disability. If so, we do not need to be unduly disturbed. We

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can learn to understand the meaning of his various types of
reactions and respond toward him accordingly; we can re-
fuse to be awed or frightened by their seeming mysteriousness
or by their illogical nature; we can take the sensible attitude
that his actions are merely intensifications of our own, given
similar provocation; and we can oppose vigorously any stigma
cast upon him because his trouble is psychiatric. Most of all,
we can realize that in most cases the outlook for an adjust-
ment to civilian life that will prove as satisfactory to him as
to us is excellent; that modern methods of psychiatric treat-
ment are performing wonders; and, finally, that the kind of
atmosphere we create at home for him will do more than any-
thing else to expedite his recovery.

TPA

6

THE FIRST WEEKS AT HOME

OME again!—whether demobilized at the end

H of the war or discharged earlier for some dis-
ability—it’s a grand and glorious feeling. No

more reveille at crack of dawn; no more jumping to attention
for every bombastic second lieutenant; no more cowering in

the slime of a foxhole watching to see where a Big One will
hit.

Corp. Russell J. Richards is one of those returned soldiers
who happens to be articulate about his feelings on coming
home. His are the typical reactions of most men who have
been away any length of time and who now find themselves
back in their home towns. Corporal Richards tells, for ex-
ample, of how visions of his mother’s cooking, of hot baths
in a real bathtub, and of automobile trips with his girl were
about his only supports for flagging morale when things got
too tough at the front. He describes how he idealized and
dreamed of the hundred and one sorely missed little details
of everyday civilian life and his joy in planning those first

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few weeks at home. He recalls ruefully how at that time he
scoffed at talk about the difficulties to be faced in adjusting
to home life again, how he felt confident that adjustment
would be no problem at all for him, and how he would
merely have to start right in where he left off on entering
the army—hunt up his old friends, buy a new suit of civilian
clothes, and in general resume living just as if he had never
been away. Adjustment? That was all high-brow talk.

And some of it did come true, Corporal Richards remem-
bers. His mother’s cooking was just as good as ever, the de-
lights of a tub bath were fully up to expectations, and his
girl seemed genuinely—if a bit demurely—glad to see him
again. Even his father gave respectful ear to tales of derring-
do, and it all seemed at first very gratifying and very much
as he had pictured it. But Corporal Richards, who is one
of those rare people who are able to laugh good-naturedly
at themselves and who can put their feelings into words,
now admits that it wasn’t long before flaws began to appear
and the horrid doubt flashed across his mind that maybe
there was something to this adjustment business that he
hadn’t counted on. For one thing, he discovered that, cor-
dial as his girl was, she had been plunged, by his return, into
a conflict of loyalties with friends she had made while he
was away. For another, he found it incredible to realize that
the girl had gotten a job and wasn’t always free to run at
his every beck and call. In looking back on it now Corporal
Richards chuckles in amused exasperation at the idealized
image he had nurtured while he was away.

Corporal Richards experienced other disillusionments.
The old crowd he had planned on rejoining on his return
had mostly evaporated. Some were still in service, while

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others had been discharged and moved to other towns. Dis-
consolately, he drifted down to Nick’s diner, where he had
been in the habit of sitting on a stool, with elbows on the
counter, and arguing long into the evening with Nick over
a cup of coffee. But now Nick was too busy serving a horde
of war workers to do more than give him a friendly wave
of welcome as he bustled from kitchen to counter with
laden trays. Now several months after his return Corporal
Richards can see that he began to grow grumpy and ir-
ritable from all this disillusionment. Things in the home
town weren't really at all what he had expected them to be,
and he reverted to a practice common to most of us under
similar circumstances: i.¢., he projected his feelings of irrita-
bility onto others, instead of acknowledging that the trouble
Jay within himself. “What’s the matter with everyone, any-
way?” he asked himself. “Why can’t things stay like they
used to be? Why must everything be different? Heck, back
in the army there were some things at least that a fellow
could depend on.” |

The climax was reached when a hastily planned trip to
the lake with his girl had to be abandoned through lack of
coupons for gasoline and the refusal of the man at the serv-
ice station to sell him any without coupons. Corporal Rich-
ards says he really blew up then. Did the man mean that a
veteran with two years’ overseas service and a string of
ribbons across his chest didn’t rate any privileges? Gas
coupons? ‘Those are for civilians. What kind of a country
is this, anyway? Maybe the old foxhole wasn’t so bad, after
all. At least, over on the other side no one had ever asked
him for coupons to gas up his mud-stained jeep before set-
ting out on a reconnaissance trip—and so, on and on.

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Corporal Richards is only one returned soldier, but tens of
thousands of his buddies feel as he did, bitter, bewildered, and
disillusioned over the realities of homecoming. Nothing turns
out quite as they expected and they quickly find that the difh-
culties of adjustment on going into military life are no whit
more painful than those experienced on coming out. More-
over, the adjustment difficulties on returning home affect not
only the soldier himself but his family and friends as well, and
the realization that his reactions are hurting them adds to his
pain. He recognizes that some of his behavior is difficult, but
he is likely not to understand why he feels and acts as he does
and he is thoroughly miserable and sometimes ashamed and
guilty. We, then, his family and friends, must do our best to
understand, even if he can’t, and out of our understanding
develop attitudes that will help shorten his period of adjust-
ment. |

In order to do this suppose we try to break down some of
these adjustment difficulties, first, into those facing all re-
turned servicemen, whether demobilized or discharged, and,
second, into those special adjustment difficulties confronting
men who have been given a medical discharge for physical or
psychiatric reasons and who consequently return home before
the war is over.

No matter what the reasons for separation from military
service, virtually all returned soldiers begin to experience a
mixture of feelings after the excitement of the first few days
at home has subsided. Relief at leaving the army is mixed
with an illogical resentment at having to do so, and happiness
at being home again is mingled with sadness over leaving the
boys of Company K. Out of this mixture of feelings may grad-
ually be distilled an attitude of mild depression, which, while

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probably temporary, is uncomfortable while it lasts. It is com-
pounded chiefly out of a realization of the loss of group sup-
port. Attention was drawn in an earlier chapter to the strenu-
ous efforts made by military officials to instill a feeling of group
loyalty and identification among servicemen; to cause them to
feel that they were an indispensable part of their group and
that they in turn could depend on the group. By and large,
these efforts succeeded, sometimes only too well. Month after
month in the army the man in whom we are interested identi-
fied himself with the group imperceptibly but closer and closer
until it became a very part of him and he felt helpless and in-
secure without its invisible support.

True enough, he griped and grumbled, as does every good
soldier, about his officers, his buddies, and the regulations,
but deep down within him he sensed his dependency on the
group and developed a powerful loyalty. In this respect his
grumbling was the same kind that is seen in a husband and
wife, whose mutual bickerings conceal a basic affection so deep
that they will resist separation and fly fiercely to the defense
of each other if attacked.

But now the group is broken up; our soldier has been trans-
formed into an ex-serviceman; he is on his own, and only part
of him likes it. What about the future? With what new groups
can he identify himself and thus derive continuing group sup-
port? ‘lo what or to whom can he attach the loyalties he felt
for his group? Where will he find security and thus lessen
some of the anxiety that assails him? He may not phrase his
problems in just these words, but these are some of the diffi-
culties for which he must find solutions before his civilian
adjustment becomes satisfactory.

He makes pathetic attempts to bring some order into his

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chaotic feelings. For one thing [and this is strange], he dis-
covers he has forgotten how to discipline himself. In the army
he became a creature of routine dependent on army regula-
tions and a sergeant’s orders for almost every breath he took.
It had been hard at first, but gradually he accepted this
routinization of his life and even found it easier to follow
orders blindly than to think for himself. Months or years in
the service caused him to forget how to make many everyday
decisions for himself, and now that he is at home and func-
tioning no longer in an orderly and regimented environment
he feels ill at ease.

An understanding of this will go far to help his family to
be patient with his indecisions and doubts, which he may
show in the most trivial ways, as well as in some important
ones. For example, he literally may not know how to organize
or what to do with his time those first few weeks, with no
one to direct him.

He putters aimlessly around the house, starts off to a pic-
nic, changes his mind and decides he’d rather go to a movie,
and wonders if today or tomorrow would be better for mow-
ing the lawn. He drives his mother frantic by sometimes ask-
ing over and over if dinner isn’t ready and at other times
being naively surprised that he is an hour late. On the other
hand, out of his need to avoid making his own decisions or
having to do too much thinking for himself he may try des-
perately to institute at home a replica of his military habits,
where everything is done at precisely the same time and al-
ways in the same way. This brings further exasperation to his
bewildered family, especially if they have been easygoing,
without too much concern for meticulous living. He insists—
banteringly, perhaps, but nonetheless with steely determina-

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tion—that if supper is set for six o’clock, then the family
must be at the table with forks upraised as the clock strikes,
or maybe that his sister’s happy-go-lucky habit of stowing
the dishpan under the sink at one time and on the cupboard
shelf the next calls for rebuke, or that his young brother’s
pajamas and ties must be hung neatly on closet hooks instead
of being left scattered helter-skelter all around the room.

Before entering the army our man may have been equally
careless, and the family does not know what to make of the
change that has occurred in him. Everything, he insists,
should be reduced to a system, “the army system”; it makes
things easier that way, he says. Maybe it does, the family
grudgingly concedes, but it also takes a lot of the fun out of
living, and they shake their collective heads despairingly over
the conflict between their desire to make things pleasant for
the returned soldier and their exasperation over the disar-
rangement of their mode of living.

Learning to take responsibility for one’s own management
and the need for making one’s own decisions come hard
after a prolonged period when these things were all done
for one by others, but bit by bit the returned soldiers (most
of them, at any rate) do take over the job of organizing their
own lives, and this problem eventually disappears.

Another problem that besets, secretly perhaps, almost all
returned servicemen is fear of the future. Many of them ap-
pear outwardly cocky and confident; but inwardly they won-
der about their ability to get established in civilian life. Even
though they may know they can have the old job back for the
asking, they raise all sorts of doubts within themselves about
its stability, its likelihood for promotion, whether their ab-
sence for so long has gotten them out of the swing of the

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old job, etc. They are reassured perhaps by governmental
promises to take care of the veterans, but at the same time
they wonder about their place in the postwar world and how
the shape of things to come will affect them.

If they return unmarried they permit doubts to creep in
over their ability to support a wife and to make a good hus-
band. If they had just begun college when they entered sery-
ice, they wonder, is it really wise to spend another three or
four years in a belated attempt to complete their education?

This fear of the future is based partly on realistic appre-
hensions, but partly it is apt to be a displacement of anxiety
about their adequacy to function on their own after the de-—
pendency that military existence threw about them is with-
drawn.

Closely allied to the returned soldier’s fear of the future
may be an attitude of timidity or shyness or of self-conscious
silence when in a group of civilians. This, too, may perplex
his family, for prior to going away he may have been the lite
of the party. Such an attitude can mean several different
things. It may mean, for example, that he has been out of
the current of civilian interests and activities for so.long that
he really does not know what is going on. Magazines and
home-town papers may have reached him infrequently, and
letters may not have kept him up to date with regard to local
happenings. Besides, he was often too occupied with military
duties to do much reading. Consequently, he finds he hasn’t
much to talk about with civilians. He hasn’t heard the local
gossip discussed eagerly by the home folks; he hasn’t kept up
with the political situation, either local or national; he can't
even answer questions intelligently about the strategy of the
Supreme Allied Command in the Normandy campaign, since

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all he saw of it was the infinitesimally tiny segment in which
he personally was engaged. All in all, he feels like a “wash-
out” and he senses with a renewed despair the gulf that sets
him apart from those he longs to join.

A problem that exerts almost immediate influence on his
civilian adjustment, on his family relationships, social rela-
tionships, and general community relationships, is that of
suitable control of the aggressiveness he as a soldier was
taught to develop. Aggressiveness in a soldier fighting a war
is a military virtue, but the same aggressiveness expressed in a
civilian milieu may be regarded by others as a vice. This shift
in values is hard for some returned men to understand. More-
over, it is far easier to unleash aggression than it is to retame
it. Some returned servicemen are going to fail to restrain their
aggressiveness once they leave the army and will get into
trouble with the civilian authorities. Among them will be a
proportion of the psychopathic personalities described in
Chap. 5. Others will come to make this adjustment satis-
factorily but perhaps only after one or more unpleasant ex-
periences.

Such aggressiveness does not necessarily have to be ex-
pressed in physical violence. ‘Too blunt, brusque speech; a
domineering, beiligerent manner that offends; curt com-
mands to others—these, too, may retard the personal as well
as the vocational adjustment of many men unless they can
substitute more diplomatic ways for getting along with peo-
ple. Parents, wives, and friends may be distressed at such
shows of pugnacity and at the rebuffs in civilian life they
produce.

Gradually, however, most of the men who display such
attitudes will be enabled to drain off their aggressive feelings

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or at least turn them into socially acceptable channels,
through the same means used by the rest of us whose aggres-
siveness perhaps is less intense: namely, through competitive
sports, through music or the other arts, through the give-and-
take of social intercourse, and through directing it into our
jobs. | |
An annoyance that is trivial, although painful to the fam-
ily, is likely to occur in the vulgarity of the ex-soldier’s lan-
suage, Military life is a rough-and-ready existence; niceties of
speech are exchanged for utilitarianism, and humor 1s apt to
be of the latrine variety. Oaths and profanities become com-
monplace so that they are used automatically and unnoticed.
They soon lose all meaning—if they ever possessed any to
begin with—and, in common with a majority of his military
friends, the man with whose civilian adjustment we are con-
cerned will probably come home with a vocabulary inter-
larded with new expressions that will shock his mother. If so,
she need not be alarmed. In time it will pass, the more
quickly if scant attention is paid it, as he begins gradually to
want to make himself more similar to those around him at
home: i.e., as he forms new identifications, this time with
civilian rather than military groups.

In the same way, much of the ex-serviceman’s conversation
is likely to revolve around the subject of women and sex,
particularly when he turns raconteur. Soldiers of course have
been women-starved for months or years; most of them are
in the lusty period of adolescence or post-adolescence, when
biologic urges are normal but powerful, and it is only natural |
that at times their thoughts should turn to sex. This is the
more likely because, in their exclusively masculine military
environment, they were deprived of the usual civilian oppor-

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tunities for draining off sex feelings through wholesome
recreational contacts with girls, and as a result they have
come to overvalue this biologic instinct. War, of course, is
an elemental struggle, and almost everything associated with
it tends to become reduced to primitive forms of expression.
Sex is no exception, and under the life and death exigencies
of warfare it, too, is apt to lose many of its civilian sublima-
tions and refinements.

If the ex-soldier’s stories seem to be pretty salty don’t take
them too seriously. Part of his motive for telling them may
be nothing but the carry-over of military habit, another part
may be due to his inner uncertainty of himself, which makes
it necessary for him to pose as a sophisticated man about
town, while yet a third part of his motive may come from the
mischievous little-boy desire to draw attention to himself by
Shocking the old folks. Ignore his sexy stories or tactfully
change the subject and it won’t be long before he forgets
them.

All returned soldiers pass through a period of disillusion-
ment as an inescapable part of their total problem of civilian
adjustment. They become disillusioned about their home
town, about their jobs, about their freedom from military re-
strictions, but most of all about their families and friends.
This last disillusionment is hardest of all to adapt to because
of the feelings of guilt it engenders. Even the soldier who was
so self-centered or immature that he never felt any deep at-
tachment to his home town, his job, or his family builds up
an artificial idolization of these by a process of imitating the
genuine nostalgia of more mature buddies. Army songs, army
propaganda, army customs all combine to produce a pattern
of eulogy of home life that exerts a powerfully suggestive

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effect on many men. Because they are expected to be home-
sick and because they are expected to dwell everlastingly on
the good old days in the good old town of X, and of good
old Mom and Pop, and kid sister Sue and brother Tom (to
say nothing of good old Dotty, the girl friend), they build
up a picture of home life that is Utopia itself.

With most of them the process is a genuine one, but
among those whose verbalized idealization of home life is
the most vociferous are to be found a proportion of emo-
tionally immature men of all ages, whose home-town senti-
mentality is akin to the maudlin tears elicited by a “mammy”
song. It is among this latter group that the impact of dis-
illusionment strikes the hardest. Because their idealization
was so largely fictitious in the first place, the resulting let-
down feeling is interpreted by them as a personal betrayal,
and the more artificial the original build-up, the more bitter
their indignation and denunciation that the folks at home are
not the paragons of perfection they expected them to be.

A period of disillusionment is inevitable for all returned
soldiers, immature or not, before their concept of themselves
finally is transformed from a military into a civilian one, and
out of their disillusionment emerges a variety of attitudes
and displays of behavior that may hurt and perplex the fam-
ily. While they were away they had put out of their minds
the multitude of petty but inescapable irritations of civilian
living and remembered only the pleasant things.

Private Frank Mullins, discharged from an infantry regi-
ment in Italy because of severe arthritis in his leg, found, for
example, that he completely dissociated from his thinking his
mother’s annoying prewar habit of asking where he was going
and what time he would be home; his father’s usurpation of

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the bathroom for a leisurely shave when he was himself rush-
ing to get cleaned up for a date; the blaring of the radio at
the neighbor’s next door on a Sunday morning when he
wanted to sleep; or the way his girl friend invariably made
him wait while she gave interminable last-minute touches to
her hair before coming downstairs. These irritations, which
had made him unhappy at times before he entered the army,
were all forgotten when he visualized home from the beach
at Anzio. But now home had become a reality once more and
after the first few days Private Mullins was disturbed to
find himself seeing flaws in its fancied perfections. True,
during those first few days it was just as he had pictured it.
His father and mother acted as if Frank was an honored
guest—and that, in a sense, was exactly what he was—a guest.
Part of him reveled in his family’s solicitous ministrations,
which seemed to realize his overseas anticipations. But an-
other, deeper part was vaguely uneasy at their considerations.
It seemed almost unnatural, as if it were too good to last.
About the fourth or fifth day the novelty of Private
Mullins’ homecoming began to wear off. His family re-
sumed their everyday habits, many of which irritated him.
While in the army, often overcome by homesickness, he had
minimized these or completely forgotten them. Now he faced
the irritations and pinpricks of everyday life, back in full
force. Private Mullins was conflicted about all the prob-
lems mentioned a few pages back in connection with leaving
the army, but perhaps he didn’t see them as clearly as we
have. All he knew was that he felt strange and puzzled and
hurt and a bit melancholy. Something had to account for his
feelings, and, since he wasn’t aware of the real causes for
them (ie., his missing all the things that military life had

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come to mean for him), he was required to pin the responsi-
bility onto something concrete. What more plausible, there-
fore, than to make the annoyances of civilian living the scape-
goat? So Private Mullins, as well as all the other returned
servicemen of whom he is a prototype, may express his dis-
content with himself through taking it out on others, espe-
cially on those with whom he comes in closest and most
frequent contact.

Thus, he grows moody and restless. ‘To his own as well as
to the family’s astonishment (for by a reverse process, they
had forgotten all his irritating habits and had come to idealize
him while he was away) he becomes snappish or impatient.
He finds fault and complains. His speech is sarcastic at one
time and sullen at another. He develops an argumentative
streak that may grow so heated as to arouse suspicion that he
is deliberately trying to provoke a quarrel. The family is un-
happy and so is he. He still doesn’t realize that his dissatis-
faction lies chiefly within himself rather than with others,
and he is convinced that they don’t understand him. Indeed,
he may go so far in his bitterness as to believe these others
take enjoyment in making him irritated, and a mild persecu-
tory feeling may develop. What to do? Where to go to find
people who will understand him? .

Private Mullins doesn’t have to ponder these questions
long before the answer suggests itself. If these civilians don’t
understand him, even members of his own family, he can
seek out other ex-soldiers who do. And so he drops in at the
Legion rooms or those of some other veterans’ organization
and at once feels at home. Here he finds an atmosphere savor-
ing of his former Company K. Here are other bewildered and
disillusioned lost souls like himself, huddling together for a

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pitiful retention of the group support they came to lean on
in the army. Here are people who speak his language, and
here are those who commiserate comprehendingly with him
in his distress. At the Legion they all can gripe about civilian
life just as they did about KP duty in the army, and without
hurting the feelings of those they love; they can curse mean-
inglessly without causing raised eyebrows; they can reminisce
interminably as they endeavor to project themselves back into
the environment where they felt understood and secure and
confident. Once more they recapture at least the ghost of the
feeling of support they once derived from identification with
the group, and for the moment their civilian irritations
vanish.

Veterans’ organizations come into existence to meet these
needs of Private Mullins and his millions of former bud-
dies. For a time after returning home these needs are healthy
and legitimate. In months or in a year or two most ex-service-
men, however, have completed their adjustment to civilian
life. ‘They have become full-fledged civilians again, and their
need to perpetuate their former military existence grows less
desperate. This group (which constitutes a majority of all
returned soldiers) gains sufficient security from their adjust-
ment to life in the community to permit them to loosen their
dependency on the veterans’ organization. They drop in at
the clubhouse once in a while, to be sure, for they enjoy quite
normally the opportunity to meet old friends and to keep in
touch with new developments, but for the most part the
veterans’ organization for this group (which, to repeat, repre-
sents the majority) becomes in time merely a pleasant club
to be used only when the spirit moves.

For a minority, however, the situation is different. For the

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immature, the emotionally unstable, or the dependency-con-
ditioned ex-serviceman, or for the returned soldier whose per-
sonality is too rigid or perhaps too timid to allow him to
adapt to the role of a civilian, the veterans’ organization be-
comes the focal point around which much of his existence
centers. His original need on returning from military life to
find group support within its sanctuary does not—as in the
case of the sturdier, more mature personality—grow less. On
the contrary, as the discomforts of assuming civilian respon-
sibility for his self-management mount in painfulness his at-
tachment to the organization mounts similarly in intensity.
In this respect he is not unlike the perpetual adolescent who,
despite mature physical years and success in business, con-
tinues emotionally to live in his college atmosphere, who
_ attends class reunions, litters his room with football trophies,
' covers his walls with class photographs, and, like as not, is
’ the permanent class secretary.

This type of ex-soldier is at the clubhouse every minute he
can spare and is among the die-hards who habitually have to_
be driven out late at night. He leans upon the favors granted
by its officers or influential members. He debates noisily and
at great length on trivial matters at business meetings. He
searches indefatigably for new members, and his tenuous
security brims over if he is elected to office. At its meetings
he is vitriolic in his diatribes against the ranks of 4-F’s, “‘slack-
ers,” conscientious objectors, and other noncombatants, into
which he is inclined to relegate most civilians, and he intro-
duces heated resolutions against them. “The organization first,
all ex-servicemen who—sadly—have not joined it yet, second,
and to hell with the rest of the world” is apt to be the work-

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ing philosophy of this kind of fanatical veterans’ organization
member.

It is all understandable, even if it may contain implications
for community as well as for national disquictude. The more
immature or insecure or emotionally unstable a man is, the
more trouble he has in identifying himself with the healthier
bulk of the community. The more trouble he experiences in
doing this, the more likely he is to limit his relationships only
to those in whom he senses similarity. Veterans’ organiza-
tions can and do perform valuable community services, to
civilians and former soldiers alike. But it would be running
counter to facts to deny that, if or when their control is
seized by overaggressive individuals with a ruthless lust for
power, when a segment of their membership causes them to
become isolated from the main current of community har-
mony, or when their policies and practices encourage in many
of their members an unhealthy dependency on the perpetua-
tion of a phase of life that has long since passed, their in-
fluence is apt to be against the public good.

What has been written so far pertains to some of the
problems of civilian adjustment of all returned soldiers. It
will be well at this point if we look at some of the special
adjustment problems of the soldier who is discharged before
the end of the war because of -some-physical.or psychiatric
handicap. To this group should be added the million and a
half others who were rejected at induction centers as un-
suitable for military service, the so-called ‘“4-F’s.” These com-
bined groups experience many of the discomforts of adjust-
ment that face demobilized servicemen and in some, addi-

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tional ones arising out of the particular nature of their handi-
cap.

The first few weeks at home for the soldier discharged be-
cause of some battle wound or deformity are apt to be agoniz-
ingly painful, not only for him but for his family and friends.
Of course, the chances are that he will not be discharged
from government hospitals until everything possible has been
done to repair his injuries. When this has been accomplished,
however, there will remain many with residual and visible im-
pairments that affect their emotional attitudes and, conse-
quently, their civilian adjustment. ‘There is, for example, the
ex-serviceman who returns home with an amputation or a
marked limp or some other conspicuous limitation of motion
of a limb or, perhaps worst of all, with a hideous disfigure-
ment of the face that the most skilled plastic surgery cannot
wholly eradicate. What problems of adjustment do these men
face and what attitudes shall their families take to make that
adjustment smoother? One of the most painful is their doubt
of acceptance by the family. No matter how securely they
felt entrenched in the love of parents or wife before the in-
jury, they cannot wholly rid themselves of the horrid fear
that perhaps these persons will now find them repulsive and
that as a consequence their affections may cool. Such handi-
capped men may also feel this way about their first meeting
with former friends and employers. So unsure are they of
their reception that some may be seen searching the faces of
loved ones as if to detect the signs of rejection they fear.

How to deal with this attitude in a returned soldier pre- —
sents a difficult problem for the family. If—as should be the
case—they have been informed before his return of the na-
ture and degree of his injury, they can prepare themselves

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emotionally in advance to school their feelings when he walks
into the house. If they have been given no preliminary infor-
mation about his disability, however, the shock felt by the
family at the first sight of his deformity may betray them,
and if the deformity actually is repulsive they would be less
than human if they failed to show how they feel. However,
with the tension of the first meeting over, parents, wives, and
others can do much through their attitudes to help during
the difficult weeks of adjustment to follow. They can adopt a
realistic manner that does not minimize the seriousness of
the situation but on the other hand does not exaggerate it.

If a man returns with a missing arm or leg it will do no
good to put on a bright, artificial Pollyanna manner that pre-
tends to ignore it, nor will it help to dissolve into tears and
absolve him from all attempts at self-help. Instead, the con-
structive attitude for the family to take is one of admitting
the limitations on certain activities imposed by the handicap
and then proceeding to help the man compensate for these
limitations by searching for substitutes. To accomplish this
families will need as never before to develop the qualities
sometimes referred to as the “two I’s,” i.e., Imagination and
Ingenuity. They will need imagination in order to put them-
selves in his place and to sense how he feels about his handi-
cap and its reaction on them. They will need ingenuity once
this is done, in order to devise ways and means for compen-
sating for the handicap. In almost all cases families can suc-
_ ceed in achieving this, but no specific blueprints are available
and each instance will require the exercise of clever individual
thinking.

Repeated reassurance that his handicap makes no differ-
ence in their affection for him also will help the physically

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disabled serviceman. To be effective this reassurance must be
genuine. If a wife feels secretly a measure of true revulsion
for the nature of her husband’s deformity (especially if affec-
tion for him had been only lukewarm in the first place), then
all her words to the contrary will fail to reassure. ‘These men
are extraordinarily sensitive to the impressions they create in
others and they develop an uncanny sharpness in detecting
feelings of rejection in others no matter how cleverly dis-
guised. Reassurance can best be expressed through attitudes,
not words. Develop an attitude, for example, that takes it for
granted that the disabled man will resume the performance
of every activity he formerly engaged in, except for those that
involve the areas definitely limited by his handicap. Don’t
absolve him from all duties or responsibilities and, most of
all, don’t baby him.

If he was a mature, sturdy personality before his injury, he
will resent being pitied and babied. If he was formerly im-
mature and dependent, babying will only crystallize his self-
pity into an eager and permanent loss of all incentive to be-
come reliant. Give him tasks to perform around the house,
scold him good-naturedly when he deserves it just as you used
to do, encourage him to resume old friendships as if nothing
had happened, let him feel from your attitude that you stand
always four-square behind him, and, above all, do not make
him dependent.

This admonition holds the most serious possible impor-
tance for the future of the individual disabled serviceman, as
well as for the nation as a whole. As discussed in Chap. 2,
the temptation to dependency, to be taken care of and ab-
solved from adult responsibilities resides in us all. Most of
us under ordinary circumstances reject that temptation and

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continue to extract satisfaction out of independence. But
when circumstances occur out of the ordinary, when injury
or sickness lowers our resistance to this temptation, or when
we have failed to achieve emotional maturity, then it is easy
to heed the “call of the cradle” and permit—or even demand
—that we be taken care of.

A soldier discharged for some physical or psychiatric dis-
ability is entitled by a grateful nation to every last ounce of
help he needs. But the help that he needs and the help that
he wants do not always coincide.

Unpalatable as it may be to take, the impersonal fact
stands out that a goodly number of ex-servicemen are going
to want to be taken care of in far greater degree than their
actual disabilities justify. World War I, with its two-thirds
fewer men involved, is a sobering confirmation of this. Vet-
erans Administration figures state that in June, 1920, a year
and a half after the Armistice, there were 17,471 veterans
remaining under hospital care. By June, 1942, these figures
had jumped to 56,073 World War I veterans under hospital
care under the Veterans Administration. Of these, 76 per cent -
were nonservice-connected disabilities. A breakdown of clas-
sifications revealed that 4,900 were tuberculosis cases; 16,514
were general medical cases; and 34,659 were neuropsychiatric
cases. Careful studies of these men indicate that many had
demanded hospitalization because they had given up the fight
to become adjusted to civilian living and had surrendered to
coddling by the government. Original disabilities that, under
wiser management by families, by governmental agencies, and
by veterans’ organizations might have been reduced to frac-
tional degrees, became total, and the veterans were encour-

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aged to lean indefinitely on public substitutes for individual
initiative and self-help.

This encouragement to continued dependency has, unfor-
tunately, been strengthened by well-meaning but unwise
governmental policies concerning methods of payment for
military disabilities. Up to the present time for both World
Wars I and II it has been the government’s practice to pay
a disabled veteran a monthly sum (depending on the degree
of disability) every month as long as the disability lasts.
Under such circumstances it is inevitable—human nature
being what it is—that not a few dependency-conditioned vet-
erans decide (at least unconsciously) that they cannot afford
to get well, since in that case payments would cease. There
is, of course, no question but what a disabled ex-serviceman
is entitled to financial and other help when his disability was
incurred while fighting for his country. But existing methods
for discharging our national debt of gratitude to these men
all too often do them a dis-service by inviting a prolonga-
tion of—or even rendering permanent—their period of inef-
fectiveness as productive members of the community.

It is encouraging, therefore, to note that this unhealthy sit-
uation recently has been given official recognition by Colonel
William Menninger, chief of the psychiatric division of the
Surgeon General’s office of the Army Medical Corps. Colonel
Menninger, with the endorsement of many other medical
officers as well as civilian physicians, urges that disability pay-
ments be made on a lump sum basis, rather than spread out
in monthly doles as long as the disability remains. Should
this policy be adopted thousands of veterans who otherwise
would be tempted to remain “disabled” indefinitely in order
to be eligible to receive governmental support, will be en-

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couraged to stand on their own feet and re-enter civilian life
on an independent, self-respecting basis.

For his own sake as well as for that of our nation, let us
help the disabled ex-serviceman to the fullest extent of his
need; let us be sure that our aid is of the kind that helps him
to help himself.

For the returned soldier who is discharged because of a
psychiatric handicap the problems of community adjustment
are somewhat different. He has no visible wound or injury to
explain why he is back home while his buddies are still at
war. Consequently, he wonders if people will think he is a
Slacker or a coward or a “gold-bricker.” Unhappily, some-
times his fears are justified. An astonishing percentage of
otherwise intelligent persons in the community possess an
abysmal ignorance of psychiatric conditions and, because they
fail to understand, are prone to ascribe them in others to
lack of “guts,” weakness of will, or some other equally erro-
neous factor. The psychiatrically discharged soldier and the
psychiatrically rejected inductee both sense this prevalent
community attitude toward the nature of their disability and
suffer under its consequences. Moreover, some soldiers dis-
charged from military service for psychiatric reasons are re-
sentful and bitter over their separation from it since they,
too, fail to understand the necessity for the discharge.

They do not see why they are no longer felt needed or
wanted in the army; they perceive no connection between
their occasional “black-outs” or fainting spells, their moods
of apathy and depression, or their attacks of anxiety and
panic and the nature of their military duties. They do not
foresee—as their officers do—the strain-provoking experiences

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that lie in wait for them, the pressures that will be placed on
their adaptive capacities by combat conditions; they do not
see that their “black-outs,” depression, or anxiety are warning,
danger signals pointing to a fragility of adjustment equip-
ment. |

As a result of their failure to understand these matters
many such men return home feeling guilty, as if they had
deserted comrades in time of need; feeling that perhaps, after
all, they are the slackers that many in the community assume
them to be; and feeling most of all a compelling necessity to
save their face. Because their psychiatric symptoms are not
externally apparent, as an amputated hand or a crippled
knee, some of this group deliberately manufacture physical
reasons to explain their presence in the community. When
asked why they were discharged they mumble something
about flat feet or a heart condition or an impairment of
vision or hearing. Occasionally some of them feel so ashamed
of the nature of their difficulty that they conceal the reason
for their discharge from their own families by offering some
vague physical condition instead. Even if the family do come
to know the real reasons for the discharge they, too, may feel
the need for face-saving with neighbors or the other workers
at Father’s shop, and a sort of family conspiracy is agreed
upon that the soldier is home because of a “strained back.”

There is one point in his civilian adjustment, however,
where the face-saving excuses of the psychiatrically discharged
soldier cannot succeed. This is when a prospective employer
asks to see his discharge papers. All subterfuges, no matter
how innocently motivated, are now revealed, as the official
document may state in blunt language that the man has been
discharged because of “unsuitability for military service.”

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Theoretically, this official explanation might refer to any one
of a number of different causes, but employment managers
and personnel departments have come to assume that this
phrase usually refers to some psychiatric condition. |

Till the spring of 1944 the papers of a soldier discharged
for psychiatric reasons were likely to have the reason stated as
due to psychoneurosis, which made matters still worse in view
of the widespread misunderstanding of this term and its impli-
cations, but that practice happily has now been abandoned.
At other times the discharge papers may have been still more
cryptic, with the cause for discharge merely checked against a
code number. Sometimes this code number when deciphered
by those “in the know” referred to discharge under Section II
of the Medical Department, thus constituting a “certificate
of disability,” under which a majority of psychiatric cases
left the service.

At other times the code number referred to Section VIII,
which was a non-medical type of discharge. It was used to
separate from the army a variety of men displaying what mili-
tary officials call “inaptitude for military service.” These may
have included those who were psychopathic personalities,
feeble-minded (mental defectives), or habitual bed-wetters
or those with various behavior disorders. Then there was Sec-
tion VI, which covered fraudulent enlistments, as well as
Section X, which referred to discharge for a miscellaneous
group of conditions lumped together under the heading “for
the convenience of the government.” Dishonorable discharges
following courts-martial and civilian arrests were covered by
still another section of army regulations. At any rate, em-
ployers quickly came via grapevine to learn the significance

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of the code and their pre-employing scrutiny became more
rigid.

This industrial oversensitivity to anything smacking of
psychiatric has become almost an obsession to some employ-
ers and is, of course, grossly unfair both to the ex-serviceman
and to the industry that thus deprives itself of a valuable
worker. Much of this book has been devoted, by implication
at least, to debunking the prevalent superstitions and stig-
mata surrounding the whole subject of psychiatric disorders.
By this time it is hoped that it has been made clear that the
psychiatric reasons leading to discharge from military service
(or.leading to rejection at an induction center) are disqualif-
cations for military service only. An overwhelmingly large
percentage of men so labeled have performed efficiently in
prior civilian life and can and will perform equally efficiently
when they return to civilian life. ‘The nature of their disability
makes them poor military risks, to be sure, but need carry no
implication of hazard for community participation. Blanket
refusal of employment to this group solely because of a
psychiatric discharge is both cruel and stupid. Each case
should be studied on the basis of its own merits, and if neces-
sary industry should obtain advice from competent psychia-
trists as to employment suitability.

It is true, of course, that some psychiatrically discharged
men have symptoms that may make their return to their old
jobs hazardous. Men who have developed epileptic seizures
constitute one example of this, and men with memory impair-
ment, confusion, or forgetfulness resulting from the after-
maths of skull injuries may constitute another. Such in-
stances are in the minority, and if these men cannot work
safely at their old jobs, new and less hazardous ones can be

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found. The rank and file of psychiatrically discharged men
will be found capable and worthy of any job that aptitude
and other routine tests indicate within their range of skill,
and the numbers of truly unemployable veterans will be few.

In the case of most men discharged for psychiatric reasons
the acute episode that led to their separation from service
has passed by the time they reach home. However, certain
attitudes may persist to make community adjustment diff-
cult. One of the more trivial of these may be an insistence
that not only family and friends but the community as a
whole regard them as heroes (which, of course, in a sense they
are), and accord them suitable respect as persons to be set
apart, revered, and granted special privileges. The more in-
secure a returned soldier feels at being separated from the
group support he came to lean on, the more he will demand
recognition as a former member of that group. He will wish
credit given him for the dangers and deprivations he has been
through and will be certain that no one who has not experi-
enced the same things can possibly appreciate his sacrifices.

This attitude is understandable enough and quite human.
It usually does not last very long, although some very inse-
cure veterans may cling to it indefinitely. A grateful public
will be tolerant of this attitude and will humor its owners
unless or until their demands exceed reasonableness. This
need to be thought of as a hero is one of several reasons why
certain veterans postpone dofhng their uniforms on returning
home. It causes others to complain noisily and belligerently
at paying customary civilian prices for articles they formerly
purchased at canteens at a discount. It leads some to expect
special privileges, such as being granted immunity to traffic
regulations when driving a car, preference such as they had

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when they were in the army when it comes to queuing up for
theater seats, freedom from the exasperations of rationing, or
free medical, dental, or hospital care for postwar-contracted
illnesses.

The need to be regarded as a hero displayed by an occa-
sional ex-serviceman is at worst merely a passing annoyance
to family or friends. When, however, such an occasional man
bands together with thousands of other similarly minded ones
and when their demands for special privileges are taken up by
veterans’ organizations and used as political sandbags, the sit-
uation may assume aspects of national importance.

Another familiar attitude expressed by some returned sol-
diers (but more likely by the dependent or immature, or by
those with some disorder of personality) is that of chronic
complaining. Literally nothing ever meets the full approval
of such veterans. The more uncomfortable the pangs of
civilian adjustment, the more bitter and varied become the
occasions for their complaints. They gripe and they grouse
about everything, and their families grow despairing at at-
tempts to placate them. Most of all, they repeat monoto-
nously their resentments at being sent into the service, at
having to leave home when Tom, Dick, and Harry were de-
ferred or rejected, at losing out on the fabulous war-industry
wages, etc., etc., until they antagonize almost everyone who
lends ear to their complaints. Such irritation may be largely
overcome if family and friends understand that, with the ex-
ception mentioned below, most of this complaining should
be interpreted as a symptom of an underlying difficulty in
getting reestablished in community life. Corrective efforts
should be directed to the basic difficulty of adjustment in
general, rather than exclusively to the complaining.

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The exception referred to concerns chronic complaining
when it comes from that special kind of individual described
in Chap. 5 as the psychopathic personality. Such persons
seem to derive a perverse satisfaction in stirring up trouble.
They are apt perpetually to carry a chip on their shoulders
and to have developed overweening egos insatiable in their
need for attention through any device whatsoever. The psy-
chopathic personality was a psychopathic personality long
years before he ever entered military service, and his prewar
adjustment may have been continuously stormy and tumult-
uous. His army career was likely to have been characterized
by the same turmoil, and now that he is back in the com-
munity his troublemaking propensities resume unabated. As
was said earlier, little can be done to lessen complaints from
such as these, and unless or until their behavior reaches anti-
social proportions, when custodial care can be invoked, their
families and the public at large have scant recourse except to
bear with their malevolence as patiently as possible.

Last of all, we come to those problems of community ad-
justment of a group of psychiatrically discharged men whose
disabilities are not severe enough to call for care in a mental
hospital but nevertheless are sufficiently handicapping to
postpone immediate reemployment or full entrance into com-
munity activities. These include men who suffer with a va-
riety of emotional conditions less severe than committable
insanity. Some are overly quiet, depressed, or apathetic, with
little interest in anything. The family can stimulate in them
no spark of animation, and not infrequently they may be
discovered weeping. ‘This kind of psychiatric casualty usually
dislikes to leave the house and mix with others. It is hard to
persuade him to attend parties or other gatherings, and often

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he will reproach himself for all sorts of fancied sins of omis-
sion and commission. A common self-accusation of this kind
is his assertion that he has no right to happiness or comfort
when he has been discharged and sent home while his bud-
dies are still in combat overseas. His thinking, of course, 1s
faulty, and the family should realize that it is symptomatic of
the loss of insight his emotional disorder has produced.

Another frequently encountered reaction among this group
of returned servicemen is constant anxiety. This can be ex-
pressed in dozens of different ways; some of the most com-
mon are restlessness, feelings of inner tension as if the man
wanted to scream, indecision over a host of petty matters, and
a state of generalized nervousness. Such men often have
trouble in sleeping. They have insomnia, or their sleep is _
broken into short snatches and when they do get to sleep it
is frequently interrupted by nightmares and terrors. At times
during the day acute attacks of panic may arise for no dis-
coverable cause, in which the men perspire profusely, com-
plain of palpitation of the heart, breathlessness, and an awful
certainty that they are going to die. Of course they never do
die of such panic attacks and invariably the anxiety wears off,
but few other physical or mental symptoms can compare with
these for sheer terror and torment.

Then there are those other emotional conditions, de-
scribed in Chap. 5, in which the returned soldier is morbidly
preoccupied with a host of uncomfortable bodily complaints.
Headaches, queer prickling or tingling or “drawing” sensa-
tions in head or neck, spots before the eyes, feelings of mus-
cular weakness in arms or legs or perhaps all over, flutterings
around the heart or stomach, vomiting, dyspepsia, tight feel-
ings in the abdomen—one could run down the list of symp-

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toms in a patent-medicine advertisement and find most of
them duplicated in the complaints of this kind of psychiatric
casualty. He insists that they are uncomfortable enough to
prevent him from going back to work until they are relieved
and he experiments with one remedy after another or goes to
doctor after doctor. If such a man proves after a bit to be
a sore trial to the patience and continuing sympathy of the
family, let it be remembered that he is not faking or imagin-
ing these symptoms. As explained previously, they are very
real; he is genuinely uncomfortable and he is truly convinced
that there is some physical causation for them. Nevertheless,
if, as in most such cases, no organic cause for them can be
discovered, the explanation must be sought in the realm of
his inner feelings, and the condition must be viewed as
another of the curious ways in which certain persons express
their difficulty in adjusting to some experience of life.
Closely allied to this kind of emotional disorder is another,
in which a returned soldier with some actual physical injury
persists in emphasizing its disabling features all out of pro-
portion to the degree of disability to be expected. One such
man with perhaps a moderate contracture of the muscles of |
a leg suffered from a burn may convince himself of the total
uselessness of that leg and proclaim he cannot walk without
help. Another may have lost part of the vision of one eye
from a shell splinter but insists he is all but totally blind, etc.
Again, let it be emphasized that these men are not gold-
bricking. Instead, they are thoroughly and genuinely miser-
able because of complicated things going on in the uncon-
scious parts of their minds, which they do not understand
and which make it necessary for them to exaggerate the
seriousness of their injuries. And because the causes do lie in

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the unconscious part of their minds where they cannot get at
them without skilled help, these men cannot “snap out of it”
as their friends in exasperation urge.

Other types of psychiatric conditions that are not severe
enough to require hospitalization but make community ad-
justment difficult until they are corrected include a variety
of attitudes and mannerisms that perplex or annoy families
and friends. For example, there is that obsessive tendency on
the part of some to rehash monotonously over and over again
certain topics or reminiscences until they completely bore
their companions. There is also that condition which pro-
duces an attitude of extreme oversensitiveness to fancied
slights or criticisms and results in sulking or a hurt with-
drawal from further contacts. Suspiciousness and a conviction
that others are out to take advantage of him are yet other
attitudes that may retard a man’s community adjustment.

One could go on for a long time describing an almost
endless array of psychiatric conditions of these kinds. The
point to be made, however, is this; the attitudes, the manner-
isms, and the symptoms just described are all indicative of a
disorder of personality and of adjustment equipment that has
passed over into a moderately severe state. However, while
few of these particular states are severe enough to justify ad-
mission to a psychiatric hospital, they do need psychiatric
treatment. This treatment can usually be obtained on an out- |
patient basis, i.e., in a psychiatrist’s private office or at a
mental hygiene clinic, and can be undertaken while the
patient continues to live at home. Treatment is necessary, ~
however—make no mistake about this—if the condition is to
be corrected and prevented from degenerating into a chronic
state. Families should not indulge in wishful thinking and

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hope that with the passage of time the condition will clear
up itself. True enough, as time goes on some of the original
symptoms do disappear, but they have a tendency to become
transformed into other symptoms whose underlying meaning
1s identical with the first ones. Under proper psychiatric
treatment many of these conditions can be helped, and such
treatment should not be delayed.

Where can a discharged serviceman obtain psychiatric
treatment? ‘’he first step is to ascertain whether the dis-
ability that resulted in discharge has been officially classified
by military authorities as service-connected or nonservice-con-
nected. If its origin has definitely been established as service-
connected, then the nearest office of the Veterans Adminis-
tration will arrange for treatment. If nonservice-connected,
the local Red Cross is the best place to go to secure informa-
tion as to how treatment can be obtained. In many com-
munities there are psychiatric clinics supported by commu-
nity chests or other private agencies where treatment can be
secured. Likewise, many of the larger communities have one
or more psychiatrists in private practice who will be available
for treatment purposes. If none of these resources happens
to be available in a given community, then a letter to the
Director of the Division on Rehabilitation, National Com-
mittee for Mental Hygiene, 1790 Broadway, New York 19,
N. Y., will bring information. This organization recently has
prepared a Directory of Psychiatric Clinics and Related Facili-
ties and copies may be obtained for twenty-five cents by writ-
ing to the address just given.

Lastly, let it be remembered that there is no disgrace in
owning up to a psychiatric condition; that it is an illness just
as some disorder of the physical body is an illness; that most

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persons with a psychiatric condition do not outgrow it if left
unaided; and that proper treatment usually can do much to
cure or at least lessen its effects. Above all, do not delay treat-
ment.

Once a man is under treatment by a psychiatrist there are
still many things that families and friends can do to cooper-
ate with the doctor’s treatment and thus hasten cure. First
and foremost, do not jump to the conclusion that, just be-
cause the ex-soldier in whom you are interested has a dis-
ability labeled “psychiatric,” he is suffering from some mys-
terious malady that sets him apart from other human beings.
It may help to reread that portion of Chap. 5 which explains
about this.

Adopt a natural attitude toward him. Merely because he
is emotionally sick does not mean that he is helpless or
should be excused from all ordinary responsibilities and
courtesies. Bear with his eccentricities or irritabilities up to a
reasonable point, but do not permit him to tyrannize over
the family. Let him feel by your attitude that you understand
and sympathize with him, but do not commiserate with him.
If he starts in on a bout of self-pity try to change the subject
or plan some diverting activity. Be ingenious; let him do as
he pleases the first few days, but after that brief breathing
spell commence planning with him along whatever lines may
be indicated, finding a job, hunting up the old crowd, etc. —

If one plan doesn’t work, don’t give up in despair but get
busy with another. Don’t pretend to agree (merely for the
sake of humoring him) with plans or ideas of his that are
obviously fantastic or impractical. Be realistic with him and
try to insist that he be realistic, too. Don’t become overactive
in probing emotional sore spots with him. Let his psychiatrist

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take care of that delicate and dangerous process. If he shows
no inclination to talk about his war experiences, don’t try to
force them out of him. He has reasons for his reticence or his
inarticulateness on this subject that to him at least are good
reasons, and he will only be driven to sullenness if he is
probed against his desires.

Be on guard shortly after he arrives home to detect sub-
jects of conversation that excite him or cause him to become
hostile and aggressive. Once you discover what these subjects
are try to avoid them. Don’t be drawn into arguments with
him. Listen to what he has to say, and then, even if you dis-
agree within yourself and believe him to be in the wrong,
change the subject or tactfully end the conversation. Hour
by hour and day by day, let him feel that your attitude is a
positive one, that you take for granted his return to health
and normal life, and that, come what may, he can count on
you forever and forever.

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GOING BACK TO WORK

NE of the most urgent problems of civilian ad-
justment facing the returned serviceman is the
question of securing a job. Not only does the

problem include the elemental aspects of his finding some
gainful employment, but the individual man’s attitude to-
ward such employment likewise must be considered. Prior to
the war, a few industrial organizations had begun a concen-
trated study of the attitudes of workers, but the necessity for
wartime production swept aside most experiments of this
nature. Now, however, with some eleven million men re-
turning to their shops and offices with a newly discovered
awareness of individual value and dignity, large-scale demands
for attention to individual feelings and needs may properly
be expected. It is all very well and very necessary for manu-
facturers’ associations and chambers of commerce to address
their thinking to the broader aspects of postwar industrial
planning, but unless the human aspects of veteran reemploy-
ment are given equal consideration, broad planning will have
little effect. Because in most cases the returned soldier is

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going to be different in many respects from the man he was
before he went away, those differences are bound to stand
out in as sharp relief in his job relationships and attitudes as
they do in his home environment. They must, therefore, be
understood and wisely dealt with by employers no less than
by members of the man’s own family. Likewise, the same
reasons that make his adjustment difficult to his family and
to his community make it necessary that he be handled with
great tact and comprehension by his employer if he is to be-
come efficient and productive, with minimal turnover, ab-
senteeism, and intramural friction.

What are some typical examples of these very human and
understandable attitudes that returned servicemen already
have exhibited in industry? Job restlessness—a year or two of
tramplike drifting from job to job before settling down—is
one. Excessive demands for special favors and privileges based
on the halo of military prestige is another. Still a third is a
war-boom-engendered insistence on wage scales far out of
proportion to an individual’s actual industrial value. Also,
there is the commonly encountered problem of near-neurotic
choosiness in job selection, in which ambition overreaches
vocational aptitudes. Attitudes of touchiness or even actual
insubordination to industrial authority as personified by fore-
man or straw boss, who becomes identified perhaps with a
formerly hated sergeant or corporal, make another problem
of adjustment serious enough to merit managerial attention.
Moreover, not a few ex-servicemen, in their efforts at postwar
personal adjustment, are going to carry over into the shop
and to their relationships there the grievances and disillusion-
ments they are encountering in the outside community.

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Naturally, these both can and do create friction and mis-
understanding.

One could recount at considerable length additional prob-
lems connected with going back to work, but since this is a
specialized field it will be well if discussion of it is left to
specialists. ‘Two eminent specialists of this kind are Dr. L.
Holland Whitney and Dr. Matthew Brody of the Sperry
Gyroscope Company of Great Neck, Long Island. This com-
pany is one of several pioneering industrial concerns taking
an intelligent and serious interest in problems of human
engineering. Dr. Whitney is the medical and service director,
and Dr. Brody is the consulting neuropsychiatrist. Both have
had extensive experience in dealing with problems of ex-
soldier adjustment to industry, and both have received under-
standing and continuous support in their work from an en-
lightened management. Dr. Whitney and Dr. Brody, there-
fore, have prepared the following material on going back to
work.

% x x

Into the caldron of war is thrown the finest of our man-
power, and those who return from it are altered. A few are
seemingly benefited by their experiences, but many more re-
act unfavorably. The changes in some will be obvious and
in others less perceptible. In some, the changes will be great
and in others less. A grateful country will remember with
honors in accordance to their deeds, and with pensions ac-
cording to their needs, those who will have been rendered
less capable of earning their livelihood by honorable service
to their nation. They too will have the pride of having served.
But gratitude, medals, pensions, and pride are not enough.
The men who have made their sacrifices to preserve our way

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of life will want an opportunity to share in that way of life.
However, they will find on their return that they will be em-
ployed not for what they have done but for what they are
capable of doing. Those who cannot produce are entitled to
sustenance by the government they served, and those who
can are entitled to have their capability improved to the max-
imum possibility. The responsibility for this improvement
must be shared equally by the nation, the community, indus-
try, and the individual himself. If real efforts are made, the
numbers of those incapable of aiding themselves will be ma-
terially reduced. That is the essence of rehabilitation.

In the post-war eras of previous wars few efforts were made
to give the returning soldier an even break. In the period fol-
lowing World War I, our major efforts along this line were
directed toward pensions. There were some sporadic attempts
at vocational training and in industrial rehabilitation, but
most of these efforts did not begin until a year after the war
was over. The great majority of veterans were left to shift
for themselves. The fact that most of them did well in this
respect is no excuse for the repetition of such an unrealistic
approach. We must be prepared to make our maximum
efforts on behalf of the returned soldier as soon as he is re-
turned. Such a policy, while perhaps initially expensive, will
yield tremendous returns in material and human values.

The goal of rehabilitation is to bring a man to a point of
maximal usefulness to himself and to society, to enable him
to sustain himself and to enjoy the fruit of his production.
The best criterion of success will be the ability of the soldier
to obtain and to hold a job—not any job, but a good job.

Will I get a job? To the veteran who poses that question
only a partial answer can be given. It depends on what he

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has to offer and on what the community and industry have
to offer him. Whether or not jobs will be available in the
postwar period will depend to a great degree upon the effi-
ciency and rapidity of conversion from an essentially war
economy to a peacetime one. One must frankly admit that
present plans in this direction are vague and nebulous. We
are only doctors and cannot pretend to understand the intri-
cacies of industry, finance, and economics, but we do feel that
any plan for reconversion that considers only the physical
problems of buildings, machinery, and finance, without con-
sidering the fate of the present and future workers who are
the people that must live during reconversion, is only half a
plan and therefore inadequate. Retooling must be not only
of machinery, but of man.

We doubt that all the present people employed in war
industry will continue to be employed after the war. Many
are superannuated, beyond retirement age, or ill and continue
to work now because of the shortage of man power. Many
will quit war work to return to former occupations now
closed—as salesmen, clerks, accountants, and other fields in
what is now considered nonessential work. Many women are
now working because their men are in the services and will
return to the home with the homecoming of the soldiers.
This wholesale change in workers, plus the beginning of pro-
duction of consumers’ goods for which there is a large un-
satished demand, should create many vacancies in industry.
Whether these vacancies will provide work for all we do not
know, but this much can be said, Federal law, union con-
tracts, public opinion, and the desire of industrial manage-
ment, all guarantee to the ex-soldier preference in employ-
ment.

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When should the veteran return to work? A previous chap-
ter has discussed the first weeks at home and the readjust-
ment the returned serviceman must make in that time. ‘The
length of time required for this interval varies from person
to person and depends to a great deal upon his physical, men-
tal, and emotional state. The statement that the sooner the
veteran looks for work the better is really placing the cart
before the horse. The better the veteran is (as far as his re-
adjustment is concerned) the sooner he will look for a job.
With important exceptions, it has been our experience that
the returned soldier who looks for a job within two or three
weeks of discharge has the best chance of getting one and of
doing well at it. This of course merely means that the man
~ or woman who is adjusting well to himself and to life’s prob-
lems cannot be content with idleness and will soon find him-
self employment.

We spoke of important exceptions. Occasionally we see a
man who is obviously not well, either physically or mentally,
apply for a job. Usually in these cases, some well-meaning
but ilLadvised relative or friend has urged him to go to work
or the man has forced himself to go to work prematurely
without understanding that one who is not well should not
be working. He would do better to wait until his health is
better before he attempts to work again. Going to work too
soon invites failure and will lead to considerable and unneces-
sary discouragement, dissatisfaction with one’s work and
oneself, and a disgruntled attitude. We have seen other vet-
erans who were far from well upon discharge but who had
continued adequate care and medical attention until the
maximum of recovery occurred. When they began working,
they did quite well. Had they begun work earlier, they un-

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doubtedly would have failed, and their failure would have
been a disservice to themselves and to their employers. The
community and well-meaning relatives should not be too
prone to consider shiftless or lazy the veteran who is not
working. They should understand that often the apparent
unwillingness to work may represent an inability to work for
unrecognized mental or emotional reasons. They should not
hesitate to seek competent medical advice or even the services
of a specialist in emotional or mental problems.

At work, the veteran will find things vastly different from
what they were in the armed forces, yet what will disturb him
most will be not the big things, but little things. In the
armed forces, he was away from home, often lonely and
worried about what was going on at home. He was without
freedom and privacy. He was often exposed to danger or the
threat of danger without any choice in the matter, He had
to obey orders without question and accept at times indigni-
ties and repressions without comment. Griping, to a certain
extent, permitted him to let off steam. The uniform and com-
radeship of his fellows gave him a feeling of being part of a
successful fighting team.

Work habits in the armed forces are different. Most of his
time, especially in training, was spent in preparation for
events that seemed far off. Much of the preparation must
therefore have seemed excessive. In time of battle, for exam-
ple, when casualty rates may be high, many doctors, medical-
corps men, and a vast equipment are immediately required.
Before the battle, all these doctors and medical- -department
personnel and equipment must be ready, seemingly idle.
Thus, for long periods of time spent in preparation, soldiers
have little to do. Even extensive training after a while seems

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futile and unnecessary. The armed forces, because of their
mission, work in spurts with long periods for preparation and
recuperation. It is for this reason that military life has a repu-
tation for making some people lazy.

In industry, men and equipment are employed more
evenly. The difference between a maximum effort and be-
tween season lulls is insignificant as compared to what can
occur in the armed forces. On the other hand, this even, un-
eventful, unthrilling routine will at first be an unbearable
bore to those who are not used to it. At work, many of the
restrictions of military life will have been removed, to be
replaced by the unimaginative restriction of the time clock,
At work there will be no commands; infraction of orders will
not carry with it the threat of the guardhouse, company
punishment, or the court-martial. There will be many other
things that one will be expected to do or that one ought to
do in order to get along with one’s fellows. Most important,
one does not have to take the guff from a foreman that one
did from a tough sergeant. One can always quit or at least
think of quitting a job. (In the armed forces, resigning is, to

say the least, discouraged.) This does not mean that one will

quit a job, but it is a comfort sometimes to know that one
has that privilege. Sometimes veterans do that or take things
out on their foremen, not realizing that what they are really
trying to do is to get even with a sergeant, who brooked no
arguments.

We can recall one veteran who became troublesome
shortly after he secured employment. He would smoke when
and where smoking was not permitted. When this was toler-
ated, he was noticed to loaf at his work. Finally he came late
regularly and sometimes didn’t come to work at all. When

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the foreman scolded him, the man brusquely and loudly quit
his job. It so happens that there is a company rule that all
men who quit must go through a certain procedure in the
personnel office, similar in large measure to what applicants
went through to get the job. The case under discussion illus-
trates the value of this procedure. ‘The veteran turned out to
be a sensitive, shy, easily hurt young individual, who had been
discharged from military service for “nerves.” His term of
army service had not been a long one but had meant to him
one continuous dread of being punished. He never was sent
to the rock pile or the guardhouse, but he always was afraid
that he might be. He came to fear authority, and in the army
he had no chance to talk back. Finally his nerves gave and
he “cracked up.” His medical treatment was good, and he
was much better at the time of his military discharge. What
happened at work was this. Without realizing it, childishly
perhaps, he so conducted himself that the foreman was
forced to bawl him out. When the foreman, who was not
expected to know all this, did so, this veteran was able to
retaliate. He could quit and in that way show up the fore-
man. Essentially he was getting back at his old top sergeant,
who he imagined had tormented him, by quitting on the
foreman. When this veteran was helped to realize what was
really behind his strange conduct, he at first felt chagrined.
His attitude was additionally complicated by a long record
of trouble in personal adjustment previous to his army expe-
rience. He was patiently helped in his readjustment and is
now getting along very well with the same foreman, and he is
no longer a special problem.

We should like to discuss in passing one type of veteran
who cannot adjust to civilian work habits. He is fortunately

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in the minority. He is the restless, shiftless, irresponsible indi-
vidual, who should not have been in the armed forces in the
first place. Since early childhood, this person had never
gotten along well with persons in authority. In school he was
a truant, and in his youth, “wild.” Often his history shows
frequent clashes with the law, with numerous arrests. His
story is one of restless wandering from one job to another,
with no definite goal in mind, like flotsam on the sea of life.
The more serious cases are the habitual criminals, who do
not seem to learn from experience. ‘They may be swindlers,
card sharks, embezzlers, confidence men, or sexual perverts.
Their glibness and engaging attitude make an initial good
impression upon the inexperienced and gullible and enable
them to worm themselves into positions of responsibility and
trust. Their instability, however, makes it impossible for
them to make good. The technical name for this aberration
is “psychopathic personality,” but it does not imply insanity.
The severe, criminal, or sexual psychopath is usually rejected
at the induction station. The milder ones will get by and
in the services they constitute a continuous source of trouble.
Occasionally they are capable of great acts of heroism, but
they are not worth the trouble they cause. A classic example
is the English officer who, at great personal risk, removed a
time bomb and received a medal for his valor. Within a few
months, he was court-martialed and imprisoned for a stupid,
felonious swindle, Although these men are in the minority,
they stand out like a sore thumb. In the services, when they
are discovered, they are quickly discharged as troublemakers.
Sometimes the real cause for discharge is given upon the dis-
charge papers, but more often they are discharged for some
other unrelated cause. These men, as a rule, cannot adjust in

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industry just as they cannot adjust to life’s situations. Un-
fortunately, however, they are the loudest in their demands
for special consideration as veterans. It is this type of veteran
who spoils it for every other veteran who follows. A super-
visor who has had one such psychopath working for him
will be reluctant to try another veteran in the future. What
must be remembered is that you cannot judge a herd by one
black sheep. It is not fair to condemn the majority of worth-
while, conscientious, ex-servicemen because of the antics of a
few. As a general rule, it is not worth bothering with these
individuals. If they can be recognized, they should not be
offered employment. If they get by the employment office,
and they will with their smooth and glib attitude, they should
be discharged when they begin causing trouble. Employers
will find that the veterans’ organizations will be the first to
cooperate in weeding them out.

The handicapped man has a special problem in adjusting
himself to a job. He must not only make the adjustments to
civil work life demanded of all veterans, but has the added
burden of a disability as well. Varying with the degree of
their defect, persons can compensate (make up, adjust them-
selves) for their defects, depending upon their initial physi-
cal, mental, and emotional endowment as modified by their
previous life experience. An individual with a dependent, self-
pitying, helpless attitude toward himself and toward life will
be floored by relatively minor handicaps. On the other hand,
persons with a self-assured, self-confident attitude can com-
pensate for much severer handicaps and even, in some in-
stances, do better with their handicaps than they ever did
before. Beethoven wrote music when he was deaf, and Milton
wrote poetry when he was blind. It is not the handicap that

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determines what an individual can do thereafter, but the
combination of the person and the handicap that counts. It
is foolish to consider what the crippled can do; we must deal
with human beings who are crippled. In the rehabilitation
of the handicapped veteran, an equal role is played by (1) the
veteran, (2) the community, and (3) industry, and there is
no sharp line separating their responsibilities. No. two can be
successful without the third. The community (by that we
mean the armed forces, Veterans Administration, various
medical, social service, and educational agencies) is responsi-
ble for restoring the man to the point of maximum recupera-
tion from his disability. This involves everything that hap-
pens to the man from the time of injury to the point of
maximum recovery. Many injuries are only temporarily dis-
abling, being such that, after treatment, the man can be re-
stored to full duty. Other injuries make it impossible for him
to continue in military service and will necessitate discharge.
The treatment of this man should (and does) involve a great
deal more than ordinary medical and surgical attention. It is
not enough to merely provide him with an artificial limb,
or a hearing aid, or insulin if he is diabetic. There is the re-
sponsibility to provide him, if possible, with sufficient skill to
earn a living. In some this will not be possible, and they
should be cared for by pension. If we were willing to devote
sufficient effort and money at the beginning toward the resto-
ration of the disabled man, the number of those who would
have to rely only upon pensions would be greatly reduced.
A program such as this might be tremendously expensive in
the beginning but would in the long run be worth while, not
only from the human point of view, but from the financial
point as well. ‘The cost of a totally disabled man includes not

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his pension alone but also what he does not produce and the
job he does not hold. Community responsibility does not
cease when the veteran is discharged from the hospital. It
should then undertake to teach him a skill and to encourage
him to take his part in the life of the community and in a
job, if possible. |

The most important role that industry can play is to give
the handicapped veteran a chance. Industry also must not
consider the man by his handicap alone, but must take into
consideration the human being who has the handicap.

Perhaps the best manner of demonstrating how the entire
situation can be handled is by way of illustration.

L. K., formerly a soda jerker, was inducted in the navy
in November, 1940. Two years later his left arm was badly
mangled in an automobile accident on shore, necessitating
amputation just below the shoulder. After the initial shock
had worn off, this young man became seriously depressed.
His only means of livelihood involved the use of his arms,
and he had lost his left arm in a most unprosaic manner,
far from a field of battle. The Veterans Administration
could not suit him with an artificial limb. They were either
too heavy or too uncomfortable. Even an untrained ob-
server could see that he was having a hard time getting
used to the idea that his left arm was gone and could never
be replaced. However, there were many positive signs in
his favor. He had always been conscientious and a reliable
steady worker, so that when the rehabilitation service of
the Veterans Administration referred him to us, we
thought he was a good risk. He was placed in training |
school under sympathetic instruction. To start him off,
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and mainly to demonstrate to him what could be done
with one arm, we gave him a complicated packing job to
do. This had formerly required the efforts of three girls
working rather steadily, using both hands. The method-
control department constructed a jig that held the part
and turned it over when a foot pedal was used. With this
jig (which has since been modified for use by normal
gitls), the injured man turned out by himself more work
than the three girls had done. He not only was sure of
himself, but he developed the idea that there was nothing
that he could not do. Four months later, when he com-
pleted his industrial training course, he insisted upon being
permitted to operate a turret lathe. It was obvious that he
had gone to the other extreme mentally. His instructor per-
mitted him to work on a turret lathe for a few days, until
he was convinced that it required the full use of both
hands to operate properly. Since he was so interested in
this type of work, he was assigned to a milling machine,
and a padded extension lever was attached to the left-hand
control, which he could push with his shoulder, After a
day or two at this, he seemed to be working under contin-
uous strain. His foreman was quick to recognize this and
sent him to the infirmary. The doctors there found that
his stump was red, angry and bruised. This man had been
too proud to admit that the way the work was arranged
was too much for him. A new lever was arranged that
could be pushed by the knee. Since then his work has been
fully as satisfactory as that of any other man doing the
same type of job. He no longer is in need of any special
type of consideration. Incidentally, his personality has
changed. He is self-assured and self-confident. The Veter-

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ans Administration now has an artificial limb for him that
he will accept. It may be that this new limb fits better.
It may also be that his mood has improved and he is now
ready to accept his difficulty and has adjusted to it.

Let us recapitulate everything that went on as far as this
man was concerned after the injury. Medical treatment
saved his life but left him without an arm. Treatment by
the Veterans Administration overlapped industrial em-
ployment. When he was first employed, it was obvious
that he had not fully adjusted to his handicap, and a psy-
chiatrist would say that he had a reactive depression, but
full consideration showed that there were so many positive
factors in his favor that a trial at employment was war-
ranted. He required and received considerable encourage-
ment and guidance during his training period. Then a job
was found to suit him. The first placement was unsatisfac-
tory, but this was soon recognized and further adjustments
were made in his job to make it suit him. Throughout it —
all, he was treated as a person with a problem and not a
number assigned to a machine. The veteran himself was
sufficiently ambitious to be willing to cooperate. In this
instance, there was complete cooperation between the vet- —
eran, the community, as represented by the Veterans Ad- )
ministration, and his employer. Each played his part and
the result was satisfactory.

One cannot overemphasize the importance of the attitude
of the veteran to his disability. An irritable, self-pitying “look —
what I did for my country—the world owes me a living” at-
titude, if permanent, makes rehabilitation impossible, be-
cause this person has been overwhelmed by his difficulty and

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cannot compensate for it. True enough, his defect may be
such that there is no other way out for him. This type of
attitude can best be overcome by early vocational therapy,
pre-industrial training, a chance at a job, sympathetic under-
standing, and perhaps even some coddling when he first be-
gins to work, gradually replaced by greater responsibility. ‘The
more promptly and efficiently such measures are instituted,
the smaller will be the opportunity for the veteran to fall
into a “cripple complex” type of mind. The greater the in-
dividual’s difficulties in adjustment, the more thorough the
efforts made on his behalf will have to be.

Another type of attitude sometimes seen is the blind re-
fusal to acknowledge one’s handicap. This is especially prone
to happen where the handicap is less obvious or where there
is childish shame over the disability. Such an unrealistic re-
fusal to acknowledge reality is characteristic of the individual
who like an ostrich buries his head in the sand and runs away
from life’s problems. This attitude may be illustrated by the
following illustration.

Diabetes is a chronic disorder for which there is no cure
but for which there are excellent remedies. A diabetic who
takes care of himself and watches his diet and takes insulin if
necessary can lead a perfectly normal life otherwise. On the
other hand, a diabetic who neglects himself and will not stick
to a diet is courting disaster. We were recently called upon
to examine two young veterans who had been discharged be-
cause they had developed diabetes while in service. One of
them was a bright, alert chap who always knew how to take
care of himself and met this disability in a frank and open
way. He learned how to test his urine, knew all about calories
and diets, took his own insulin, and had himself checked regu-

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larly by the doctors in the Veterans Administration. This
man was hired. He has done well in training school, and we
are not in the least worried about his future. The other boy,
however, felt ashamed of his ailment and deliberately tried
to conceal it from us. He was always afraid that people might
find out about it, as if that would make any difference. If
he were at a party and they served ice cream, he would eat
it rather than have people consider him different. His un-
realistic attitude toward his defect was only another mani-
festation of an immature, irresponsible, and shiftless pattern
of life. It is not our purpose to find fault with people, but if
this boy had been hired and later cut himself, he would al-
most surely end up with a serious infection. Consequently he
was not accepted.

The attitude of industry toward the employment of physi-
cally handicapped individuals is important. A positive rather
than a negative approach is desirable. Management should
decide these problems as they arise from the point of view
of what the handicapped person can do rather than what he
cannot do. If this is coupled with good job analysis and job
placement and replacement, the numbers of those found em-
ployable would be tremendously increased. A handicap
should practically never be considered a bar to employment.
A handicap should rather be considered as a factor modify-
ing the choice of a job. As a general rule, when a handicapped
individual desires work, despite his defect, industry can as-
sume that his personality and mental make-up are such that
he will make a superior employee. Insurance carriers and
companies that have had experience in employing the handi-
capped have found that such employees have as a rule bet-
ter attendance, employment, and accident records than the

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general average. The problem of the physically handicapped
veteran is little different from that of the man injured in
civilian life.

The veteran discharged because of “nerves” is in a very
similar situation. It is a defect that is not obvious, like an
amputated extremity. These people have feelings of inade-
quacy and inferiority to begin with. This is not helped when
discharge from the service gives them the notion that they
have been cast aside as weaklings. People who are amateur
psychologists “know” that fear plays a role, so that, to their
simple notions, these veterans are really yellow or perhaps a
little crazy. As a matter of fact, the proportion of medal win-
ners is no lower among people suffering from nervous
troubles than among the so-called “normal.” Every individ-
ual has his breaking point. It is true that some are harder to
break than others. Among those who seem to have broken
down easily are individuals who would have made perfectly
adequate adjustments in civil pursuits but whose tempera-
ments were..such that they could not stand up under the
strain of military life.

The majority of the nervous veterans are individuals who
were nervous before they entered military service. Their sto-
ries may not have been believed prior to induction, or at the
time of examination they may have faked in reverse, masking
their symptoms, or these symptoms may have been so cov-
ered up that they were not aware of their difficulty them-
selves. Be that as it may, unless they are given an opportunity
to rehabilitate themselves, their feelings of insufficiency will
become exaggerated to the point where they will be per-
manently invalided. The difficulty in working with these
people is that their handicaps are of a nature that they

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usually cannot be seen or measured and are hard to under-
stand.

In the emotionally handicapped person, the handicap it-
self may be the result of his inability to meet life’s demands
and situations and also satisfy his own internal needs. The
emotionally handicapped individual usually does not know
what he is running away from or what has warped his feel-
ings or thinking, except that he does not feel or think right.
He cannot evaluate himself as objectively as the physically
handicapped person can. Where a veteran with a physical
handicap cannot realistically accept his handicaps, the
chances are that he is emotionally handicapped as well.

It has been our experience that a majority of these people
are restored to a fair state of health and productivity merely
by discharge from the army and return to old familiar sur-
roundings. Others require considerable aftercare. As men-
tioned before, there is a tendency for a few to return to work
too soon. ‘This is a mistake. We do not think that they
should return to work until their nervous symptoms are fairly
well under control. On the other hand, industry will miss
many a good worker if it is hesitant about employing men
with this kind of defect or if it waits until they are com-
pletely cured.

Many nervous disorders occur in individuals who take
themselves and duties too seriously or set too high a goal
for themselves and are overly conscientious, worrisome, and
extremely anxious to do a good job. This tendency is ag-
gravated when we add the factors of fatigue, exhaustion,
and lack of sleep to these traits. ‘This is particularly true of
people with stomach symptoms, certain types of depressions,
and the “anxious” cases. While these personality traits are

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a handicap to the individual, the same traits are very valu-
able industrial assets. Psychiatrists will tell you that the ad-
vice they give this type of patient is to refrain from taking
themselves or their jobs too seriously, because if they are un-
checked, this type will try to kill himself with work. It is well
known that many “nervous breakdowns” are alleged to be
due to overwork. Actually overwork is the first symptom and
not the cause. It reminds us of the story Dr. George S. Steven-
son tells of a man who was applying for a job and thought he
was doing very well until the boss asked, ““Why aren’t you
in the army?” The applicant’s heart sank as he was compelled
to confess that he had duodenal ulcers. “Fine,” said the boss,
“T never knew a man that was worth anything that didn’t
have ulcers.”

Employers may not realize it as well as this boss did, but
they have been hiring people with nervous dispositions for
years. There are no accurate statistics, but it has been esti-
mated that at least eleven million persons in this country
suffer from some type of nervous ailment even in peacetime.
The amazing thing is not that large numbers of people are
affected in this way but that most of these people are work- —
ing, raising families, and discharging their duties as citizens
in a more or less efficient manner albeit at a great cost in
personal comfort.

The best criteria of a man’s suitability for employment are
(1) his school record; (2) his work record before he went
into the armed forces; (3) his achievements in the armed
forces; (4) how long it takes him to apply for a job; (5) his
attitude to himself, his employer, and his disability, if any;
(6) evidence of maturity and responsibility as shown by his
marital status, savings, attitudes toward his dependents; (7)

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his plans for the future; and (8) his reliability as indicated
by his ability to stick to some job or endeavor. Employers
should take into consideration the employee’s age and back-
ground, because what might be a good work record in a boy
of eighteen might be a miserable record in a man of thirty-
five. ‘hey must also remember that in certain industries (as
the building trade) and in certain rural communities, sea-
sonal work is the rule. If all or most of these criteria are satis-
factory in a veteran who is applying for a job, employers can
usually disregard any history of a “nervous breakdown,” irre-
spective of type.

The employer also can rely upon the judgment of the
Veterans Administration or other government agency that
might refer an individual as to his readiness for employment.
Employment supervisors must at all cost beware of amateur
psychiatrists, who may have half-baked and completely erro-
neous notions concerning nervous and emotional disturb-
ances based upon half truths.

‘The veteran will want to know what his rights are under
the law. Section 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act
of 1940 is specific in what it states. Briefly stated, a return-
ing veteran, whether inducted or enlisted, must be reem-
ployed by his former employer in a position of like status,
seniority, and pay, if: (1) he left the job directly for the
armed services; (2) he applies for his job within forty days
after discharge; (3) the position left was not temporary; (4)
he is still qualified to perform his former duties; and (5) the
firm’s circumstances have not so changed as to make re-
employment impossible or unreasonable. He may not be dis-
charged for one year after reemployment without just cause.
This section applies equally to the National Guard, Wacs,

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Waves, Spars, women Marines, and by later legislation to the
Merchant Marine. This law is enforced by the Reemploy-
ment Division of the Selective Service System. If a veteran
has any difficulty in securing his rights, he may consult the re-
employment committee of his local Selective Service Board
for aid. In the event that he does not obtain satisfaction, this
committee will be able to advise him fully on procedure for
carrying his case further. It is unlikely that court action will
be more than rarely required. Most employers will scrupu-
lously obey the letter and spirit of the law.

Although the veteran is assured in most cases of his old
job, he may not want it. As a rule, the seventeen- and eight-
een-year-olds entering the service will not have had much of
a job. After the passage of a few years, they will be reluctant
to return to a job that looked so good after school. Certainly,
Joe S., who was graduated from high school and worked for
a few months as an office boy before entering the Air Forces,
will not feel like going back to an office boy’s job on his re-
turn with a commission. Then, too, many ex-soldiers and
sailors will have learned a trade or skill in the service that
will prove much more valuable to them than their old one.
To those that desire it, there will probably be excellent op-
portunities for furthering their education at government ex-
pense after the war. These opportunities will undoubtedly
include a chance at occupational and technica! training. The
veteran will have to figure out for himself whether he will
want his old job back or a different one. He may want to get
more training. He will be able to get advice from the Re-
employment Division of the Selective Service System, from
the United States Employment Service, and from the Veter-

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ans Administration. What he is going to do will depend a
great deal upon his capabilities and his opportunities.

Some mention has already been made of the employers’
responsibilities. Industry must expect to take an active part
in the training of returned veterans. ‘Training will have to be
in two main directions: (1) technical training, to equip the
returned soldier with the skill necessary to do the work re-
quired of him; and (2) retraining in peacetime work habits,
It will be necessary to be patient at first and to coddle the
veteran for a while as he is making his adjustments to peace-
time pursuits. A tolerant, honest, and fair attitude will be
most helpful. A continued paternalistic attitude is undesir-
able from the point of view both of management and of labor
and will not be necessary.

Before industry can hope to train workers, it will have to
have a clear idea of what types of jobs have to be done. ‘This
involves careful job analysis. Industry should study, at this
time, all jobs from the point of view of their physical, men-
tal, and even emotional requirements. Only after a job an-
alysis is done can job placement be carried out. After a man
is placed on a job, a follow-up should be done in a short time,
for what may have seemed a proper assignment at first may
soon prove unsuitable for unpredictable reasons. If so, there
should be quick job replacement. Putting the wrong man in
the wrong job will be harmful both to the job and to the
man. When such a program is instituted, industry will find
that handicaps will rarely prove a bar to employment. Usually
some type of position can be found to suit each man, irre-
spective of handicap. Some handicaps will require sheltered
jobs. For example, certain types of epileptics are employable,

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but it might be hazardous to utilize them where there is
moving machinery.

Preplacement medical survey should place emphasis on
evaluation of an individual from a physical, mental, and emo-
tional point of view. This includes a careful medical history,
past personal history, an inquiry into his work habits, and an
inquiry into his emotional and mental state. Examination
must include careful physical evaluation. It may also include
intelligence testing, Rorschach and other methods of testing
the personality, and a psychiatric inventory. These tests
should be done not from a point of view of acceptance or
rejection of employment, but rather from the point of view
of estimating his potentialities and defects. With the infor-
mation obtained by such a survey, it should be much easier
to fit him into a properly selected job. ‘To summarize, the
problem of placement involves (1) a careful inventory of the
individual as a whole, including assets and defects, physical
and mental; (2) job analysis; (3) job placement; and (4)
follow-up and job replacement if necessary.

Before the war is over and demobilization on a large scale
begins, there is a great opportunity for progressive industry
to study the problems in their own plants, preferably using a
small group of veterans as a nucleus. A pattern may be estab-
lished thereby that will prove of inestimable value when the
confusion of general demobilization arrives.

The basis of personnel administration is the golden rule.
If management would always treat their employees as they
would wish to be treated, and vice versa, reemployment of
returned veterans would entail few unsolvable problems. ‘The
time to recognize and handle all these problems is now, for
a problem recognized is a danger half averted. |
: lol as

8

GETTING REACOQUAINTED WIT
DHE AM TERY

as used in these pages is deliberately restricted to

the wives and children of returned servicemen.

More men serving in the ranks in World War II have been
married for varying lengths of time prior to induction than in
any previous war. It might be well, therefore, to begin our
discussion of the problems of getting reacquainted with the
family by talking first about men whose marriages antedated
their military service by several years, leaving for a later por-
tion those other problems arising out of hasty war marriages.
After the excited happiness of the first few days at home
has given way to a steadier, more enduring variety, one of the
first problems to confront the newly returned husband may
be his wife’s job. For various reasons, many wives took jobs
on their husbands’ departure. Some did it protestingly be-
cause there seemed no alternative way to make up the deficit
in the family budget. They got jobs, not because they par-
ticularly wanted to work (indeed, many wanted just the op-

WALA ee

R=: purposes o: simplification the word “family”

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posite), but for the blunt fact that they had to. Other wives
perhaps more affluent went to work not so much because of

_ the wages it brought but because they grew bored to death

when their husbands were away and they wanted something
to keep them busy. Still others sought a job in war industry
in response to a deep and genuine need to do their part in
winning the war.

A surprisingly large number of wives, however, took jobs as
soon as their husbands left for camp for the very human rea-
son that they were not cut out for domesticity, had secretly
chafed under it, and for years had longed privately for an
acceptable excuse to set them free. Whether in office or shop
they loved their job, they loved the new friendships it de-
veloped, but most of all they loved the feelings of creative-
ness and power and independence they never had been able
to derive from housework.

Now, however, the husband has come home and the prob-
lem at once confronts them both: shall the wife keep on
working or quit her job? In reaching a solution to this prob-
lem, mutual heartaches are likely and mutual compromises
probably will have to be made. No general rule can be offered
as a panacea, and each case must be considered on its indi-
vidual merits. Of course, if the postwar period brings with it
an industrial and economic slump the problem will be solved
automatically for both husband and wife, since in that case

_ thousands of women now employed in war industries will be

discharged, and their return to a domestic status will become
the only alternative.
Barring this possibility, however, the question poses itself:

_ what attitude shall the returned husband take toward his

_ wife’s job? A partial answer will be found in the personality

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of the husband, no less than that of his wife. Just as various
wives took wartime jobs for different reasons, so also will
husbands view the retention of these jobs in various ways.

Some husbands, for example, oversensitive to real or fan-
cied criticism from in-laws or neighbors, may issue peremp-
tory orders that the job is to be abandoned pronto, even
though they themselves may not as yet have returned to
civilian employment.

Others, with perhaps a secret unsureness about their mas-
culine prestige, may feel it a reflection on that shaky mascu-
linity if their wives continue working, so they too command
a return to domesticity.

Still others, basically dependent and possibly made more
so by their military experience, may take quite the opposite
attitude and become not only willing but eager for their
wives to continue working.

A fourth group of husbands, mature, quietly confident of
their essential masculinity and of their bread-winning abili-
ties even in a postwar world, may take the sensible attitude
of, “It’s up to her. If she’s happier on a job, then let her
keep it.”

If each side makes a sincere endeavor to see how the other
one looks at the matter, most of these problems can be com-
promised. One possible exception may occur in cases where
husband and wife each privately want different things out of
marriage. Reference is especially made to the wife who found
that she was just not naturally adapted to a domestic role
and who also found herself married to a man whose concep-
tion of a wife was that of a hausfrau. ‘There are many such
men and women who have gotten themselves married to each

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other, and unless strenuous efforts are made to reach a com-
promise, marital happiness may be seriously endangered.

These people are not abnormal; at most they are merely
mismated. Every woman has some masculine characteristics
in her make-up just as every man has some feminine traits in
his, and successful marriage depends in part on ‘securing the
proper combination. It is no disgrace for a woman to achieve
the status of wifehood and motherhood but to have no apti-
tude for the traditional hearth-and-home environment in
which these states are supposed to function.

In such instances, it is likely that she will prove a more
contented—and, therefore, a “better’”—wife and mother if
she is permitted to find her satisfactions in a job outside the
home rather than within it. Nor is it any reflection on his
status as head of the family for a husband to modify some
of his concepts of his wife as a hausfrau by agreeing to a con-
tinuation of her job. ‘To do so may be difficult for some hus-
bands, particularly those who built up while away an exces-
sively domestically colored picture of “the little woman”
bustling busily about the house with broom, dishrag, and
dustcloth. But it can be done if mutual tolerance and com-
promise are exercised.

Another problem confronting the returned serviceman
with a family is the renewal of his relationship with the chil-
dren. Sometimes he can slip back into the old relationship
with little trouble, but in other cases his absence may have
done something to the feelings of the children that will re-
quire the utmost patience and tact to restore.

There is, for example, the boy who was nine or ten when
his father departed for military service. Urged by the latter
on leaving that now he must “take Daddy’s place and be-

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come the man of the family,” such a son may have followed
these paternal admonitions with a vengeance.

Sergeant Anderson of a tank corps outfit returned home
after two years in the South Pacific with a shattered shoul-
der and a medical discharge to find himself innocently sup-
planted by his young son. Deprived of her husband’s
affection and moral support, Mrs. Anderson understand-
ably turned to ‘Tommy for the satisfaction of these needs.
With the best intentions in the world she misguidedly —
lavished on the boy not only the quota of love that or-
dinarily was his, but the additional amount that would
have gone to her husband.

Naturally, ‘Tommy, who was nine, reveled in this flood
of affection. Because she was lonesome and sometimes
afraid at night, Mrs. Anderson took him into the bed she
had formerly shared with his father. Because she felt |
bowed down by responsibilities and often unsure of her-
self, she developed the habit of talking over her worries
and doubts and uncertainties with the boy in an adult
fashion just as if in reality he were the “man” his father
urged him to be. And because he was so responsive and
seemed to take responsibility so well, she failed to realize —
how much of it she loaded onto him and how much she
came to depend on him. For practical purposes ‘Tommy
actually had become “‘the man of the family,” and ‘Tommy ~
enjoyed it hugely.

When Sergeant Anderson returned home, however, he
naturally assumed that he would take over and that
Tommy would slip back gracefully into his former role of
little boy. Consequently he was perturbed after the first
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few days at home to sense that his son behaved strangely
toward him. He failed to understand, for instance, why
Tommy cried so bitterly when he was sent back to his own
bed in his own room; why he clung to his mother and
almost glared when his father would kiss and caress _ her;
or why he acted so sullen and resentful when his father
tried to be friendly with him. It never dawned on Sergeant
Anderson that his departing orders to Tommy to “take
Daddy’s place” had been obeyed literally and that his re-
turn home precipitated a jealousy situation that held
within it all the elements of a family triangle drama.

Sergeant Anderson thought seriously about the problem
confronting him. Upon remembering that Tommy had
often written him about his stamp collection, he added to
his son’s collection whenever possible and discussed the
hobby with him. He also encouraged the boy to talk about
the activities of his class at school and about his friends.
At intervals, the two of them went to basketball or foot-
ball games, to activities that had a special masculine ap-
peal. |

It took Sergeant Anderson some months to restore the
formerly healthy relationship with his son, but eventually
he succeeded by dint of patience, understanding, and a
vigorous effort to cultivate a palship with the boy. Sergeant
Anderson’s success, of course, was due to his intelligent in-
terest in his son. The manner in which he rebuilt their
relationship might not be applicable to a boy of a different
nature. Each father who finds himself in such a situation
must meet the needs asserted by the child’s individual per-
sonality.

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Daughters as well as sons likewise may ets in such
jealousy situations.

Barbara Jenkins was twelve when her father was drafted.
For several years previously her parents had been uneasy
over the sullen, resentful attitude Barbara displayed to-

ward her mother, and this was thrown into even bolder
telief by the obvious favoritism she showed her father.
Private Jenkins was relieved, therefore, when letters from
his wife told of a change for the better in Barbara’s atti-
tude after his departure. Mrs. Jenkins wrote proudly of the
girl’s deepening affection for her, of a new considerateness
she showed her mother, and of her helpfulness around the
house.

But Private Jenkins had not been home a week when
the old resentment flared anew. Barbara seemed to take a
positive delight in quarreling with her mother and was
fiendishly ingenious in experimenting with ways to make
her unhappy. Both parents were dismayed, and Mrs. Jen-
kins was secretly horrified and tormented by guilt to sense
after a bit a reciprocal resentment on her part toward her
daughter.

What was happening was clear enough if one looked
beneath the surface. As Barbara approached her teens an
extra-powerful attachment to her father developed in
which she unconsciously sought to capture him for herself.
However, she was blocked in this by her mother, who
naturally had first claim on him, and the girl gradually
came to think (unconsciously again) of her mother as her
rival. On her part, Mrs. Jenkins likewise sensed, in the un-
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conscious realm of her mind, the competition of her
daughter.

The departure of Private Jenkins for military service
healed the breach for the period of his absence. So long as
he was away neither woman could have him, and conse-
quently there was no point in continuing the feud.

When Private Jenkins returned, however, the old rivalry
was renewed, and Barbara’s behavior toward her mother
became understandable. All this was explained to Mr. and
Mrs. Jenkins by the psychiatrist to whom they had gone
for help with the problem, and by a judicious blending of
tact, patience, and restraint of feelings on their parts, the
girl was helped in time to work through her problem.

Much the same situation arises when the returned service-
man happens to be an older brother. Many a younger brother
was elevated by the rest of the family to the role of senior
when his older brother went into the army. Perhaps the kid
brother was moved into the older one’s room, allowed to
wear some of the latter’s civilian clothes, and given numer-
ous privileges that ordinarily would not have been granted
so long as the older brother remained at home. He would
have been something less than human if he failed to enjoy
this promotion, and likewise, he would be something less
than human if he failed also to resent the demotion necessi-
tated by the older one’s return. Perhaps, too, the returned
brother secretly resents the usurpation of his former role as
the elder and finds it hard on returning to conceal his resent-
ment. Much tolerance and understanding on the parts of the
whole family will be required to prevent friction and unhap-
piness under these circumstances.

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After some time away from home, the returned service-
man may find that he and his wife no longer see eye to eye
as completely as before about a number of family matters.
Questions of finances may be a case in point. Living in a mili-
tary environment, where almost everything was provided for
him and where encouragement was given—by implication, at
least—to an attitude of depending on Uncle Sam for ordinary
needs, a returned soldier may find it difficult at first to agree
with the careful budgeting his wife was compelled to devise.
His sense of monetary values may have undergone a change,
so that he construes his wife’s repeated cautions about ex-
penditures as parsimoniousness and nagging.

Another case in point where he and his wife no longer are
in accord may concern her relationship with her parents.
Some wives, a bit immature perhaps, never wholly emanci-
pated themselves from emotional dependency on_ their
mothers even though they may have been married some
years. With the husband’s entrance into the army many a
wife of this type went back to live with her people and re-
sumed an existence that for all practical purposes was iden-
tical to that of her premarriage days. When her husband
returns she may feel inwardly inadequate to assume inde-
pendent living with him away from the emotional support
and dependency she developed on her mother. In such in-
stances, the wife may unconsciously fear to leave her parents’
rooftree and find all sorts of ingenious—but plausible—excuses
for persuading her husband to live with her at her mother’s
and father’s.

Of course, the same situation may arise in reverse with a
returned husband who himself is somewhat immature and
dependent on his mother, with the result that he is the one

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to seek plausible reasons for resuming civilian life in the
home of his parents. Unless one of the two marriage partners
is quite immature and quite unable to function adequately
without parental support, or unless there is a genuinely real-
istic reason—not a cleverly rationalized one—for so doing, it
is usually better for the newly reunited couple to resume mar-
ried life alone.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty in relationships that con-
front the returned serviceman and his wife is the subtlest of
all. ‘his arises when one of the two grows more rapidly in
his emotional development during the husband’s absence
than the other. Usually, though not always, it is the husband
who does this as a result of the broadening experiences of his
military life. As a rule, men and women select each other as
mates, consciously or unconsciously because they sense the
other possesses certain personality characteristics they need
to off-set or to round-out their own. Thus, an emotionally
immature and dependent man may, without consciously
realizing why he does so, select a strong, aggressive woman
out of his intuitive knowledge that she will mother him. And
thus, also, a woman of this kind may with equal unawareness
of the underlying reasons, select a passive, dependent man
because of her need to mother him. So long as this balance
of needs remains stable as it did on the day of the marriage,
all goes smoothly and the couple are well adjusted to each
other: 1.e., the needs of each are met in the other, and their
respective rates of emotional growth or maturity proceed
harmoniously at the level of the marriage at its outset.

But if or when one of them begins to have his or her rate
of growth speeded up by any one of a variety of circumstances
this former balance is upset. The soldier comes in contact

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with many: persons of different minds and interests; his geo-
graphic horizon is widened and often his social horizon as
well; dormant qualities of independence or leadership may
be developed; he may come to gain a new, more adult con-
cept of himself. If these things should happen to a man who
went into the service as a passive, dependent personality
needing mothering from his wife, he may grow irritated when
the latter attempts to resume her mothering. In other words,
the emotional maturity of this particular soldier has grown
during his absence from home and unless his wife likewise
has developed in this respect it may be troublesome for them
to regain the old relationship.

The pangs of disillusionment at discovering that home life
is different from what he expected assail the returned hus-
band as keenly as they do the unmarried man. Wives await-
ing their husband’s return come in likewise for their share
of disillusionment. Letters, curiously enough, are one reason
for this. No matter how verbal and articulate, letters can
never give a completely true picture of feelings, and unless
the recipient is stolid and unimaginative he is bound to read
between the lines and endeavor to find there what he wants
to find. Wishful thinking, therefore, plays an important role
in the interpretation of letters, but, like most wishful think-
ing, it seldom checks with all the realities when these eventu-
ally materialize.

A special disillusionment is likely to be in store for the
wife of a returned soldier if she happens to be the kind who
previously had placed an extra high value on the romantic
aspects of marriage and on frequent demonstrations of hus-
bandly tenderness. War is a grimly realistic business. The sol-
dier is taught deliberately to kill and to harden himself

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against softer thoughts. A military environment offers few
encouragements to the finer amenities of living, and not only
does speech become crude but a man’s very philosophy loses
much of its former romanticism in favor of stark reality and
an ability to cut through directly to the heart of a matter,
brushing aside ruthlessly all nonpertinent facts.

Thus, in spite of a genuine affection for his wife a returned
soldier may find himself—in contrast to his former outgoing-
ness in this respect—strangely undemonstrative and brusque.
He finds himself unable to indulge in the old tendernesses of
speech or manner, unable as of yore to participate in rose-
colored visions or to reciprocate in his wife’s impractical but
happy daydreams for the future. His war-engendered facility
for seeing only the realities of a situation and for going
straight to the point may cause him to appear unsympathetic,
and, unless she understands the reasons for it, his wife may
feel hurt and bewildered over the change in him.

Moreover, he may bring back an attitude that she as well
as others in the family construe—erroneously—as a streak of
hardness and immunity to human suffering. Reference is
made to that philosophy of fatalism that combat experience
develops in military men in which they take not only the
attitude of “what is to come, will come,” but use “c’est la
guerre” as an expression of resigned helplessness to alter the
inevitable. ‘Thus, the wife of First Lieutenant Hamilton, for-
mer copilot of a B-17 bomber, who had seen many men die,
may be distressed at his seeming cold-bloodedness in receiv-
ing her news that old Mrs. Henderson down the street is
dying of cancer. ““T’oo bad,” he remarks briefly, “but there
isn’t anything we can do about it. What are we having for
dinner tonight?”

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Such attitudes as Lieutenant Hamilton’s reflect neither cal-
lousness nor indifference to human values, nor do they in-
dicate that those who express them have grown hard or
cruel. Instead, they arise out of battle-born realizations that
when one is truly helpless to influence a situation there is
little to be gained by pouring out one’s feelings onto it.
Acceptance of the inevitable, refusal to mourn unprofitably
for what cannot be helped or for what already has come to
pass, and an insistence on trying to adjust to the present
rather than to dwell on the past, is the stern and Spartan
philosophy with which many soldiers return. It is a philoso-
phy usually foreign to their prewar selves and is strange and
disquieting to their wives. But it is the philosophy without
whose support many would have been unable to carry on as
good soldiers in the face of ghastly combat experiences and,
therefore, is the philosophy that many will bring back to
civilian life. Wives will be comforted to realize that in time
it will give way in most instances to one better suited for
civilian living and that their husbands are not the strangers
to soft and tender emotions they appear to be.

Another disillusionment to some wives emerges from the
displays of gruffness, disinterest, and boredom shown by cer-
tain returned husbands. ‘There are various explanations for
this, but seldom should it be interpreted as a genuine loss of
love. One explanation is simple, and if the wife shows toler-
ance and unruffled patience the situation will correct itself.
This explanation goes back to an understanding of the kind
of military environment that was apt to be exclusively a mas-
culine way of doing things. After a time this environment got
into the soldier’s very blood and became an integral part of
him. But now he has left it and is back home. He loves his

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wife and he takes pleasure in her company, but his military
life has left its imprint on him. Her ways of doing things are
not the army’s ways; her friends made in his absence are not
yet his friends; her feminine logic in viewing a problem or of
reaching a conclusion is not the masculine logic with which
he is familiar; her abhorrence of his crudities and the latrine
humor that had become second nature to him at first amuse,
then annoy him; all in all he has his moments when he feels
fed up with home and his wife, and bursts of gruffness and
inconsiderateness are the outward evidence of this.

Fortunately, in most cases this will pass as he becomes
more deeply enmeshed in the processes of redomestication,
but until this process does become complete his attitude may
cause his wife some unhappy moments.

If she is wise she will not insist that he devote all his time
to her. She will learn to recognize the warning symptoms that
announce he has not yet fully accepted his new civilian status
and that there are times when he longs to get away from
domestic cares as well as joys. At such times she will urge him
to look up some of the “boys” and to take an evening or so in
a wholly masculine environment. His eagerness to accede to
her request will not mean loss of affection for her, but merely
a temporary homesickness for a rough-and-ready type of
existence that once held meaning and value for him.

What now about the returned soldier who comes back to
a war bride whom he scarcely knows? His problems in some
respects not only are different from those of men who had
become accustomed to marriage before they went into serv-
ice, but also are apt to be more difficult. In the first place
the serviceman who married on the eve of being shipped

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overseas is likely to be chronologically younger than his
buddy who had been married for several years. He is not
likely to have had the measure of life sophistication of the
older man; he is apt to be emotionally less mature because
perhaps he has had insufficient time in which to complete
his process of emancipating himself in his feelings from child-
hood dependency on his parents. If he is still—emotionally
speaking—in the stage of adolescent development it is pos-
sible that he is impulsive and unreflective, and his hasty war
marriage may be one indication of this. Should his war bride
be equally immature, then the marriage in at least its more
sober and responsible moments, is apt to be a marriage of
children, bewildered, indecisive, and inwardly frightened at
what they have done.

Observations on differing national cultures indicate a sig-
nificant comparison between the degrees of emotional ma-
turity of American boys of eighteen (the age at which they
become liable for military service) and European boys of the
same age. At eighteen years of age many American boys are
still in the process of weaning themselves away from their
childhood fear and dependency on their fathers. The Ameri-
can way of life has been such as to prolong their period of
childhood shelter and protection against the impact of adult
realities with the result that when they reach military age
they are less free than the European boy, for example, from
conflicts of mingled feelings of resentment and dependency
on their fathers.

When such an American adolescent goes into the army or
navy he may delude himself that he is at last severing the
final bond of parental control and that now he is free and
independent of family influence. Actually, of course, the re-

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verse proves to be true. He soon finds that neither emotion-
ally nor realistically is he any freer from dominance and de-
pendency on parental figures than he was at home. All he
has succeeded in doing is to exchange the dominance of a
real father for the dominance of a symbolic one in the form
of sergeant or commanding officer or in the form of military
rules and discipline.

When finally he leaves the army this dominance that has
perpetuated his dependency suddenly is removed, and for the
first time in his life the returned soldier finds himself tech-
nically free. This word “technically” is used advisedly, for
while chronologically this kind of ex-soldier is a man, emo-
tionally he remains the adolescent he was on entering service,
with the remnants of childhood dependency still clinging to
him and with all his secret fears of assuming adult responsi-
bility assailing him.

If he happened impulsively to have married just before en-
tering service or perhaps while on furlough, he now returns
to find himself faced with adult responsibilities that may
overwhelm him. It is quite possible that his marriage in the
first place was in part an unconscious attempt to convince
himself (and others) that he was grown up and independent
of parental control, a sort of disguised gesture of defiance
against those parental forces which he thought were keeping
him in bondage, his way of demonstrating to the world that
he really was an adult. It is quite possible also that his girl
married him for similar reasons on her part.

At the time it all seemed a grand and glorious adventure.
Flushed with his newly endowed role of departing hero he
swept aside as inconsequential all practical problems of mar-
riage. The future, if it was envisaged at all, held no terrors

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for him, since he was blissfully ignorant that terrors might
lie in wait. The need for patience in marriage, for tolerance,
and for bearing with the frustrations of passing whims were
needs that his adolescent immaturity had never been re-
quired to adjust to and sca played no part in his
marital anticipations.

But now he is home; i.e., he is bases in his home town but
not in any house or SRatrnenE that he and his war bride had
ever had time to call “home.” Chances are that immediately
after their hasty honeymoon the soldier went back to his out-
fit, leaving his new wife to continue living with her parents
or with his. One of his first problems on returning, therefore,
involves a decision of the practicalities of independent living.
Finances play an important role in determining this, but
other factors likewise affect the decision.

The extent to which the returned soldier may be genu-
inely independent in his feelings, and his degree of freedom
from dependency on parental relationships may well prove
additional factors. Even though the man actually is still de-
pendent on these relationships, he may be under a need to
disprove it by setting up an independent household estab-
lishment and leaving the parental roof. Sometimes this works
out well in the end and sometimes not. In either event he
finds the process of assuming adult responsibility an irksome
one, particularly if the young couple have a new baby.

The dismal end results of one such situation are typified
by Pvt. Patsy Larocco and his wife. Patsy was the youngest
of nine children and his mother’s favorite. As a youngster
he was somewhat spoiled and accustomed to being ab-
solved from household chores. In early adolescence he de-

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veloped what his disgusted father called “big-shot ideas”
as manifested by his attempts to act grown up beyond his
years. Patsy was willful and heedless and insisted on leav-
ing school in the seventh grade in order to get a job and
earn his own money. He selected for companions only
older, more sophisticated boys, and he was forever talking
“big.” At seventeen he announced he wished to enlist in
the navy, and reluctantly his parents gave consent.

At a USO dance one night Patsy met a vivacious girl
and began a whirlwind courtship terminating three days
later in marriage. After a week’s liberty Patsy was shipped
out again and months later in Saipan sustained wounds
that led to his discharge. Patsy also had left his new wite
pregnant and, since she had been brought up in a chil-
dren’s institution on being abandoned by her parents, she
went to live with the senior Laroccos. They didn’t like her
and they didn’t like the new baby, and when Patsy re-
turned his father lent him money to rent a flat down the
street and to buy furniture.

At first all went well. The young couple with their baby
were like children playing house together. But the respon-
sibilities of domestic life not only were new to Patsy but
began to chafe him. He was now almost twenty years old,
but for all practical purposes he was still an adolescent,
despite his swaggering and his verbal boasting. He didn’t
like to be awakened at night by the baby’s crying; he liked
less having to change its diapers; he resented his wife’s re-
quests for help with the dishes when he wanted to shoot
pool; he grumbled when they had to stay home from the
movies because no one could be found to stay with the
baby; he couldn’t see why his wife protested when he sur-

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reptitiously abstracted household money from the sugar
bowl to place a bet on a “‘sure thing” at the race track; and
he went into a furious rage once because she was so in-
considerate as to come down with the grippe just the day
before they were to have taken a long-anticipated week
end at the lake. |

All the multitudinous irritations and pinpricks of mar-

riage crashed down on Patsy like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t
at all what he had pictured it to be. He never had con-
templated these hundred and one practicalities when he
thought about getting married, and the need for assuming
an adult role was too much for his immature state of emo-

_ tional development. And so, like four-year-olds squabbling
in a sandbox, Patsy and his wife grew increasingly miser-
able until at last he could stand it no longer and one night
solved the problem (to his satisfaction at least) by packing
a suitcase and disappearing from home.

Other reasons for the failure of some hasty war marriages
to work out are to be found in the differences of emotional
maturity of the two partners as discussed a few pages earlier
in reference to men whose marriage had antedated their mili-
tary service by several years. The broadening experiences of
military travel and of meeting overseas girls of different edu-
cational or cultural backgrounds from those of his wife may
have opened the eyes of the new war groom to the possibili-
ties of a different kind of feminine companionship of whose
existence he previously was ignorant. As a result he may find
himself on his return making secret comparisons that not
only trouble his conscience but which he may not be able
wholly to conceal. This seems especially likely to happen to

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certain young officers whose military rank gave them access
to homes and to social groups whose cultural coloring was
different from that of themselves or their wives.

Second Lieutenant Frederick Wilson is an example. He
came from a medium-sized town in Ohio, where his father
worked in a factory. Fred’s home was a modest one; by
dint of some sacrifices the family had been able to put him
through high school, and on graduation his highest ambi-
tion was to become a foreman in the plant where his father
was employed. He wasn’t particularly bookish, nor had he
ever shown interest in music except jazz. He took no in-
terest in politics or in international problems; he pared his
nails with a pocket knife, came to the supper table in his
shirt sleeves, and lived from day to day on a comfortable
and superficial level of taking his pleasures as they came.
Fred wasn’t boorish or uncouth. It was just that his life
experiences had been limited, he acted like everyone in
his acquaintance did, and so far as he was concerned he
neither knew nor cared that any other style of living was
likely.

When the war came along Fred, then barely twenty, got
the idea of applying for officers’ training in the Air Force.
: He was accepted, and because he was naturally intelligent
and deft he won his wings and was commissioned as a
fighter pilot. A week before leaving for camp, however,
Fred married the girl he had been going around with for
the past year. Martha was a nice girl who had left high
school in her third year to earn money for the care of an
invalid mother. She, too, came from a modest family and
was wholly content with the humdrum interests and rec-

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reations that appealed to Fred. Everyone said it was an
ideal marriage; they were deeply in love with each other;
they both had the same innocent but perhaps limited inter-
ests, and both had grown up together in the same narrow
but comfortable small-town atmosphere. To Martha and
Fred the Atlantic Charter was all Greek. A Mozart sonata
bored them, although they did like the rhythm of Gersh-
win’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Martha and Fred were not stupid; it was merely that
they were satisfied with their mode of life largely because
neither had known any other. Fred wasn’t particularly in-
terested in the causes for the war—it all seemed so remote—
but he was crazy about flying and he made a good pilot.
As an enlisted man he was popular and enjoyed the rough-
and-ready existence of camp life. He participated in the
crude practical jokes of his buddies, cursed and swore auto-
matically with them, and was none too careful about his
grammar, although he had taken a prize in high school in
English.

However, his elevation to the status of a commissioned
ofhcer changed Fred a bit. The changes were few and slow
to come about at first, but when he went overseas they
developed rapidly. He found himself thrown in with many
men: of college background and on several leaves for rest
periods he was the guest of English families of culture and
distinction. In this new world people talked about books
and music and international matters with familiarity and
lack of affectation, and Lieutenant Wilson listened re-
spectfully and eagerly. New vistas began to open up to
him and dormant sensitivities became sharpened. After a
time he even ventured—timidly at first—to participate in

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conversations about subjects that a year previously were
foreign to him and to his surprise found that he enjoyed it.

But one day a bit of flak caught him in the shoulder
and ended his flying days. Lieutenant Wilson was shipped
back to the States, given a medical discharge, and returned
to Ohio, to Martha, and to the old job at the bench in the
factory.

But it wasn’t the old Fred Wilson who returned. For a
few weeks he seemed to be, truly enough, his former self,
but the adjustment began to grow difficult. For one thing,
in spite of wartime wage schedules his old job paid con-
siderably less than he had received from his former flying
pay. For another, he felt a sort of job letdown after the
glamour of flying. Also, he became aware of a feeling that
he reproached himself for harboring: snobbishness toward
the other men in the shop.

Most of all, however, he was troubled about the com-
parisons he found himself making between his wife and
some of the women he had met overseas. It all added up
to a mounting feeling of discontent that caused him to act
irritable and moody.

Fortunately, Martha was a sensible girl with more than
the average quota of feminine intuition. Sensing something
of what was going on in her husband’s mind, she waited
until a propitious opportunity arose and talked it all out
with him. It proved a relief to Fred to be able to pour out
his jumbled, unhappy thoughts about the matter, and he
was grateful to his wife for her understanding attitude that
held no measure of condemnation in it. Because of her
genuine interest in her husband’s point of view, they con-
tinued to discuss possibilities of a new and richer way of

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living. Happily, Martha also had a good share of intel-
lectual curiosity. She had had no’ provocation to exercise it
before this time, but now she was anxious to go forward
with her husband. ‘They gradually worked out practical
plans for self-improvement. Fred started to study a phase
of his work in which he felt he had talent. Martha began
to develop her individual taste in reading and started the
study of music.

Finally Fred reached the point where he qualified for a
more promising job in a distant city. So they set out with
the anticipation of forming newer, more interesting friend-
ships and discovering new activities. At last reports ex-
Lieutenant Wilson and his wife are happy in their new lo-
cation, and the adjustment seems to have been achieved.

And so we come to an end of this endeavor to discuss some
of the problems of adjustment confronting returned service-
men and their families. If the aftermath of World War I can
be used as a criterion, we can expect that eventually a ma-
jority of the eleven million or more men in military service
will make this adjustment with reasonable satisfaction to
themselves and to the communities in which they live, but
in the process many heartaches will arise and some men will
remain emotional cripples for the rest of their days. A genuine
understanding on the part of families and friends will hasten
this adjustment and in some instances may avert chronic
social invalidism. ‘To help bring about such a measure of
understanding has been the chief purpose of this book.

The help to be found in any book, however, must of neces-
sity be generalized. Many problems are certain to arise that
cannot be covered within the scope of a single volume.

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Where, then, can wives, parents, or the returned soldier him-
self turn to receive help with some specific difficulty of
adjustment?

If the problem involves a definite psychiatric disability
such as was discussed in Chap. 5, the Veterans Administra-
tion or the Red Cross or a local psychiatric or mental hygiene
clinic is the place to seek help.

However, literally hundreds of thousands of adaptive prob-
lems will be encountered that affect the family relationships
of the ex-serviceman but that do not come within the official
classification of “psychiatric.” In such cases one excellent
place to receive counseling advice or assistance is the local
Family Welfare Society. In more than two hundred communi-
ties both large and medium sized throughout the country will
be found such social agencies. Sometimes they are called
Family Welfare Societies and sometimes ‘The Family Service
Society or a similar name. Most are afhliated with a national
organization known as The Family Welfare Association of
America (122 East 22d Street, New York 10, N. Y.), and
they are staffed usually by professionally trained social work-
ers who have had training and experience in personal coun-
seling. Although some have the word “welfare’’ connected ©
with the title, this need cause no one to fear being stigmatized
as a “charity” case. Most of these social agencies are privately
financed by community chests or from other private sources
and seldom have any connection with public agencies like
municipal departments of public welfare.

Other social agencies besides those designated as Family
Service Societies also will be found in many communities
equally able and eager to be of adjustment service to the re-
turned serviceman and his family. At any of them personal

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problems can be discussed in professional confidence, and, if
the agency itself is unable to meet some specialized need, its
staff workers will know where such a special help can be ob-
tained. No hesitancy should be felt in availing oneself of the
service that these organizations are prepared to give.

As stated at the outset of this book, it is human to have
to face problems of adjustment; no one is immune from this
necessity, and, when a problem is encountered that is too
complicated to solve unaided, it is merely common sense to
consult an expert. This is what one does with problems of
sickness when one consults a doctor or with a legal problem
when one seeks the help of a lawyer. This also is what one
should do with a problem of personal adjustment when ef-
forts at self-help have come to naught.

No book can outline specific steps on how a person might
treat any or all veterans. After all, each man is a distinct in-
dividual, and his reactions to his experiences are to a great
extent dependent upon the manner in which he reacted to
varying experiences previous to his induction. His treatment
needs should be determined by the facts of an adequately
compiled case history that brings out many experiences of
his earlier life. And a psychiatrist or a professionally trained
social worker is usually the most competent person to under-
take this.

Families of ex-servicemen should carefully investigate the
backgrounds of people who claim to be authorities on the
subject of rehabilitation. Generalities and snap judgments on
the problem are likely to be dangerous. The most important
aim of people who sincerely wish to aid in the readjustment
of returned soldiers should be to achieve the greatest possible

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understanding of the complex experiences in which the sol-
dier was involved during his term of service. This in itself
will go far toward producing the intelligent and sympathetic
atmosphere so essential to the veteran’s first few months in
civilian life. |

The use of common sense and patience cannot be stressed
too much. Those who view veterans with exaggerated senti-
mentality are apt to be among the first to lose interest. It
must be kept in mind that the aftermath of the war is of
equal importance with the period of actual warfare and that
the well-being of veterans with disabilities is of no less im-
portance than the physical and mental condition of soldiers
entering combat.

It is hoped that there will be many in this country who
will contribute valuable time and effort to community proj-
ects for aid to returned servicemen. To give such persons a
primary outline of possible community organization, the Na-
tional Cornmittee on Service to Veterans has provided “Com-
munity Services for Veterans: A Guide for Planning and Co-
ordination.” It is reprinted in full in the following pages.

From such cooperative planning will come America’s solu-
tion to one of the most gigantic problems we have ever faced.

SES

COMMUNITY SERVICES FOR VETERANS

A Guide for Planning and Coordination

Prepared by

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON SERVICE TO VETERANS

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
NaTIonaL SociaAL Work Counci.

A a Arline sid
ahs Cte wo
Ae

FOREWORD

THE prospect of having more than fourteen percent of our
population serving in the armed forces during the war has
focused attention on the problems that will arise in connec-
tion with demobilization, As a result more than one hundred
organizations, public and private, have indicated their inten-
tion to render services to veterans.

‘The Retraining and Reemployment Administration has
been created by the President for the purpose of planning
and coordinating the activities of governmental agencies deal-
ing with the ex-service group. On the part of non-governmen-
tal organizations, there is a need for planning and coordi-
nation to avoid competition among the organizations and
confusion and bewilderment for those to be served.

As an aid in this situation, officials of a number of nongovy-
ernmental national agencies which have as their concern the
administration and planning, locally and nationally, of pub-
lic and private health, welfare, and recreational services have
formed the National Committee on Service to Veterans
under the general auspices of the National Social Work
Council. ‘The functions of this committee are assisting in
over-all planning to assure adequate service to veterans; pro-
viding advice and information to national private agencies
about service to veterans; offering guidance to communities
through local agencies and councils of social agencies; and
consulting in an advisory capacity with governmental agen-
cles, |

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This committee has made a study of the problems to be
anticipated and has reviewed the history of experiences fol-
lowing World War I. Consideration has been given to plans
already operating in many communities and to the program
of the Retraining and Reemployment Administration. As a
result of its studies and conferences with the leaders of inter-
ested governmental and private organizations, the committee
has prepared this bulletin as a guide to planning community
services to veterans. Millions of war workers will be dis-
charged from industry during demobilization. Community
plans for the assistance of veterans, suggested in this bulletin,
will also be useful for assisting war workers.

peu alas

SECTION I. THE RETURNING VETERAN

IN PLANNING national and local services to veterans of
the armed forces, the number of veterans, the rate of dis-
charge, and the individual needs of these men and women
are among the factors to be considered.

The effective strength of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps,
and Coast Guard is now fixed at 11,300,000. Approximately
1,500,000 men and women have been discharged from the
armed forces since Pearl Harbor. It may be presumed that
discharges from the armed forces will reach or exceed 1,000,-
000 a year. If for purposes of estimating, it be assumed that
the war will continue another two years, approximately 15,-
000,000 men would have been in service by the close of hos-
tilities.

In view of the number of discharges now occurring, it may
be said that demobilization is under way now. ‘The discharge
rate will increase as hostilities end in any one or more
theaters. Should the war in Europe end before the war in
the Pacific, the size of the armed forces will probably be re-
duced for completion of the conflict with Japan. Further de-
mobilization would then take place. With the end of hos-
tilities in all theaters, full demobilization would follow.

The rate of discharge during the period of full demobiliza-
tion has not been fixed. It will be affected by “the adequacy
of transportation facilities, the time required by the muster-
ing out process, the social and political pressures for a very
rapid demobilization.” * ‘The rate may vary from 300,000 to

1 Brookings Institution pamphlet, “Post War Reemployment,” pp. 5-6.
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SOLDIER: TOY CLV LE vA N

500,000 a month. The armed forces required after hostilities
cease may be a minimum of 1,500,000. Full demobilization
after cessation of all hostilities, therefore, may take from one
and a half to two years. Should the war continue another two
years, demobilization would not be completed before 1948.
Many variable and unpredictable factors will affect the rate
of discharge. The possibilities suggested in this statement
must be regarded, therefore, as unofficial and tentative. They
are suggested, however, as a basis for planning. Locally, the
best source of information regarding induction and discharge
statistics is generally the Selective Service Board.

The needs of veterans will vary with each individual.
Broadly speaking, all discharged men and women will need
to shift from military to civilian activity. Many will make the
transfer to employment, to school, or other activity without
aid from community or government agencies. Friends, rela-
tives, and the ordinary processes of community life will shape
their adjustments.

But many veterans will not have friends or relatives to
assist them. Many will find the ordinary processes of com-
munity life insufhcient. Many will be bewildered, restless,
perhaps resentful. Some will have physical, mental, emotional
handicaps. Many will find no suitable job available. Many
will be in new and strange communities.

The discharged man or woman may require counseling on
personal or family problems, information, assistance with
claims filing and claims prosecution, financial assistance,
whether disabled or able-bodied, and financial assistance for
dependents, hospitalization, medical and follow-up care,
psychiatric and follow-up care, vocational rehabilitation, job
training, employment service, unemployment compensation,
education, assistance with insurance, help with reassembling
the family, guardianship service, farm, home or business

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loans, and other types of planning. Each man and each
woman should have the individual consideration his or her
needs require.

For the disabled veteran a broad program of benefits and
services is available from the government. Hospitalization for
75,000 veterans of World War I and other wars has been
provided. The Veterans Administration now estimates that
a bed capacity for 300,000 veterans of this war and previous
wars will be needed. With that program will be combined
increased services incident to extension of government pro-
visions for hospitalization, unemployment compensation, job
placement, education, and loans for business financing or
farm or home purchase, as well as broad pension and voca-
tional training benefits. Disabled veterans and dependents of
deceased veterans must be guided to these benefits and en-
abled to avail themselves of those to which they are entitled.
Further, in communities throughout the nation, plans should
be made for those services, such as mental hygiene facilities,
not now generally available.

The “GI Bill of Rights” (The Servicemen’s Readjustment
Act of 1944, Public Law 346) gives the able-bodied as well
as the disabled veteran important new benefits in unemploy-
ment compensation, job placement, education, and loans.
Able-bodied veterans will be many times more numerous
than disabled men or women. They will be competing in
jobs with twenty or thirty million displaced war workers.
They may require aid after maximum unemployment com-
pensation benefits have been received. Many times they will
also need information and guidance.

Not the least important factor is a climate of public under-
standing warm and healthful to veterans. They will be wel-
comed and acclaimed upon their return. Outpourings of the
home folks and miles of ticker tape will proclaim the grati-

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SOL DILBERT OV Gly TE hAWN

tude of the nation. Yet not all who shout will know and
understand that some returning servicemen have changed in
many ways. They are older. Some may be bruised in mind
and body. Many may be unsettled. ‘They may be in doubt
~as to their place in the community. ‘They may bear many of
the rough edges, the grime, the tragedy of war. They are not
always thus, but many times they are.

The ultimate objective is reabsorption of all veterans into
the life of the community and of the nation. Many will re-
turn with new experience in leadership and with other experi-
ences and skills which will enable them to make special con-
tributions to the organized life of the community. They will
want to participate in their own organizations and in other
community and national organizations. Communities and
organizations are urged to utilize this new resource and in-
clude veterans of this war in their planning councils.

OG

SECTION II. COOPERATIVE PLANNING

THE special problems of the returning serviceman and
woman do not differ basically from personal and family situa-
tions which always demand a degree of organized social atten-
tion. Therefore, the health, welfare, educational, employ-
ment, and other types of services required will be basically
the same as those now in common use in meeting the social
needs of the general population.

Several factors, however, make it inevitable and undoubt-
edly advisable that the nation, the various states, and the
local communities establish special machinery at this time to
plan and coordinate services to discharged veterans. They
are:

(1) A large group of citizens whose needs for community
attention, if any, stem from a single source—their service in
the armed forces now exists. In other words, a “category” of
need has been created.

(2) Veterans have been recognized as members of a spe-
cial group by special legislation granting certain privileges.

(3) There is a fairly universal public opinion, based largely
on a misconception of the aims and methods of the regular
social services, which creates a demand that services to vet-
erans be separated from services to other citizens.

(4) Special agencies, public and private, and special serv-
ices have been and are being developed for the veteran.

(5) In addition to the normal urge to assist persons with
special problems, there are added in this situation the incen-

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tives of patriotism and gratitude. This has caused widespread
interest in “doing something.”

Importance of a Planning and Coordinating Body

Three types of operations are involved in a program to
meet the special needs of veterans. It is important to distin-
guish each from the others. First, there is the job of planning
and coordinating made necessary by the great interest in the
problem, the importance of the problem, and the variety of
services already established or being established. Second, there
is the rendering of common services, such as the operation
of an information and referral center, which involve the co-
operation of all groups. Third, there is the actual administra- _
tion of direct services to individuals.

The importance of the first of these tasks cannot be over-
emphasized. A prerequisite to success in handling this prob-
lem, whether on the national, state, or local level is the exist-
ence of a broadly representative, carefully constituted, and
generally accepted committee or central planning body.

The Retraining and Reemployment Administration

The prosecution of war being an operation of the federal
government, it is natural that national planning for this war-
related problem should center there. On February 24, 1944,
the President issued an executive order establishing the Re-
training and Reemployment Administration in the Office of
War Mobilization. General Frank T. Hines was appointed
administrator of this new body, but in an entirely separate
capacity from his position as head of the Veterans Adminis-
tration. ‘he Retraining and Reemployment Administration
is a planning and coordinating body and was not established
to operate or administer any direct services. ‘The executive
order states the function of the RRA to be as follows:

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“To have general supervision and direction of the activi-
ties of all Government agencies relating to the retraining
and reemployment of persons discharged or released from
the armed services or other war work, including all work
directly affected by the cessation of hostilities or the reduc-
tion of the war program; to issue necessary regulations and
directions in connection therewith; and to advise with the
appropriate committees of the Congress as to the steps
taken or to be taken with respect thereto.”

The executive order established in connection with the
RRA a Retraining and Reemployment Policy Board com-
posed of representatives of the Department of Labor, the
Federal Security Agency, the War Manpower Commission,
the Selective Service System, the Veterans Administration,
the Civil Service Commission, the War Department, the
Navy Department, and the War Production Board. One of
the activities of this board has been to draw up a statement
on information service centers for veterans and war workers.
On the basis of this statement by the Policy Board, the RRA
issued on May 17, 1944, Order No. 1, covering the organiza-
tion and operation of veterans’ information service centers.
This order directs that there shall be established in each state
a veterans’ service committee composed of representatives of
the Selective Service System, the War Manpower Commis-
sion, and the Veterans Administration. Also, it is directed
that in each community there shall be established a veterans’
service committee composed of representatives of the Se-
lective Service System, the United States Employment Serv-
ice of the War Manpower Commission, and the Veterans
Administration insofar as any one or all of these agencies
have representatives available in the community. In the case
of both the state and local committees, the order provides

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that this official committee may add to its own membership
or may represent the federal government on committees of
the same nature which have already been established.

In order to provide a channel between local and federal
efforts to meet the needs of returning veterans and in order
to stimulate and advise local planning efforts, many state gov-
ernments have already established special commissions or de-
partments. Hundreds of planning groups have come into
being locally through the action of city or county govern-
ments or under a variety of other auspices. It is apparently
the plan of the RRA to work with and through such bodies.

Local Planning

Because every community is different, no two localities will
or should set up a veterans’ planning body in exactly the
same way. The original suggestion that a group should be
formed may come from any organization or group or even
from an individual citizen leader. ‘The fundamentally impor-
tant points in connection with this committee are:

(1) That it be representative of organizations rendering
service in connection with the problems of veterans.

(2) That there be active participation by able citizen
leaders representative of major community points of view and
of the principal organizations which have a legitimate inter-
est in planning for the veteran. .

(3) ‘That the auspices be such that it will be accepted as
the central planning body by all organizations and the public.

(4) That wherever possible paid staff service be made
available to assist in carrying out its functions.

(5) That there be only one general planning body.

(6) That it be recognized by and have the cooperation
of the local representatives of the RRA.

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(7) That in its capacity as a planning body, it not engage
in rendering any direct service to individual veterans.

Auspices of Local Planning Body

The following four general types of auspices are suggested,
the plan varying according to the peculiar circumstances in
each community:

(1) The local veterans’ service committee as established
by the RRA or by act of an official state planning body.

(2) Local city or county government either by ordinance
or by act of the mayor or other official of similar rank in ap-
pointing or designating a group to be the official planning
body. —

(3) Some existing community planning or coordinating
group such as a community council, a defense council, a
council of social agencies, a Chamber of Commerce, a USO-
council, a federation of civic groups, or the like.

(4) An independent self-organized group representing a
voluntary joining of organizations and citizens for planning
and cooperation.

Composition of Local Planning Body

The local planning body may be set up either by having
- different organizations name delegates or by the appointment
of individuals who, because of their interests and organiza-
tion connections, bring with them different points of view. In
most instances the main group will be fairly large and it will
be necessary to arrange for the creation of a smaller executive
body or committee. A special effort should be made to en-
courage participation in planning by veterans of the present
wal. |

Following is a list of the types of organizations to be con-

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sidered which also gives an idea of the range of community
interests involved:
(1) Veterans’ organizations.
(2) Local offices of state veterans’ service departments.
(3) Local offices of federal departments concerned with
the problem, including (through the local official veterans’
service committee) the Veterans Administration, the United
States Employment Service, and the Selective Service System,
(4) ‘Tax-supported and voluntary health, welfare, and rec-
reational agencies and departments.
(5) Industrial and commercial organizations.
(6) Labor organizations.
(7) Religious groups.
(8) Educational groups.
(9) Other clubs and organizations.

Functions of Local Planning Body

The committee should perform the following functions:

(1) Be the central clearing house for all ideas and projects
concerning the welfare of the returning veteran to the end
that every organization and individual may make the maxi-
mum contribution without harmful duplication of effort.

(2) Gather and make available the facts about the num-
ber of veterans returning to the community and their poten-
tial needs. |

(3) Determine the adequacy of direct service facilities to
meet the needs of the veteran; plan and stimulate commu-
nity action for the provision of additional services where
necessary; and act as the medium through which organiza-
tions rendering services arrive at satisfactory working agree-
ments.

(4) Determine whether or not there is a need for an in-

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formation service center and determine the auspices under
which it should be administered.

(5) Carry on a program of public interpretation and in-
formation regarding the veteran and his proper reception by
the community.

(6) Act as the official liaison with state and national vet-
erans’ planning bodies.

- 213 -

SECTION III. VETERANS’ INFORMA-
TION SERVICE CENTERS

AFTER the formation of a representative planning commit-
tee and under its guidance, all governmental and private
agencies in each community offering services to veterans, wat
workers, and their families should participate immediately
and actively in the organization of veterans’ information
service centers where they are needed. The primary purposes
of a center would be to inform veterans of the services avail-
able to them in the community, to interpret the usefulness
of such services, and to refer veterans to the appropriate serv-
ice agencies. Among the incidental purposes of such a center
may be the simplification of referral procedures, the develop-
ment of cooperation and clarification of function among the
service agencies, and the uncovering of gaps in community
facilities as a basis for study and action by social planning
bodies.

Regardless of how adequate and well organized the public
and private welfare organizations in any community may be,
experience has shown that the average person knows com-
paratively little about these agencies and the ways in which
he can use them. This is likely to be true particularly with the
veteran who returns to his community with a variety of prob-
lems which may require the services of several agencies. For
this reason, veterans’ information service centers began to be
organized in many communities in the early months of 1944
to handle inquiries from the large number of men and

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women being discharged from the armed services. ‘These
spontaneous developments showed marked similarity in char-
acter even without any concerted guidance through national
planning. The development of such centers has now been
officially recognized and given guidance by the federal gov-
ernment through Order No. 1 of the Retraining and Reem-
ployment Administration.

Auspices and Organization

The auspices, organization, and program of veterans’ infor-
mation service centers will necessarily vary according to com-
munity situations. Large urban communities usually have a
variety of service facilities and a relatively effective type of
community organization. Small urban communities are, as a
rule, less adequately organized and equipped. Some rural
areas have little or no organization and few facilities. In any
community, however, the development of such a center
should be based on joint rather than individual agency plan-
ning. |

The general responsibility for operation of the center may
rest in the general planning body discussed in Section I of
this bulletin or that body may wish to place the center under
other appropriate auspices such as one of the following:

(1) An already existing governmental planning body such
as the local veterans’ service committee of the Retraining and
Reemployment Administration or a local defense or war-
service council. |

(2) A new body or committee appointed by the mayor or
other local authority, in consultation with the group of inter-
ested organizations.

(3) An existing council of social agencies or other quasi-
public body, provided its auspices are thoroughly accepted
by the broader group. |

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SOLDER’ TO. CIV-IETAN
(4) An appropriate individual agency, selected as the

strongest and best equipped, where other auspices are im-

practicable.

Whatever auspices are selected, however, the center should
be under the supervision of a committee or governing body
representing community interests. In small communities this
supervisory committee may consist of the planning body re-
ferred to in Section II of this bulletin, or in large communi-
ties it may be created by the group. Such a supervisory com-
mittee is equally necessary if the center is operated by a single
agency in a small community, in order to avoid a narrowing
or specialization of the center’s services.

Staffing the Information Service Center

The basic service rendered by the center will be that of
providing veterans with information regarding the use of
community facilities in meeting personal problems. There-
fore, there should be a staff of skilled interviewers with expe-
rience in dealing with personal problems and a knowledge of
community services in relation to these problems. If possible,
interviewers should be professionally trained and experienced
social case workers. The following order of preference for the
selection of interviewing staff is suggested:

(1) Persons with both experience and professional
training. |

(2) Persons with professional training but without pro-
fessional experience.

(3) Persons with actual social work experience but with-
out professional training.

(4) Persons without previous training or experience, but
with personal qualities, interests, and attitudes which offer a
basis for training in the center itself.

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Veterans who are qualified to be interviewers would be an
invaluable aid to the success of the center.

It is essential that a professionally trained and experienced
social worker be employed as executive, who in addition to
handling administrative responsibilities will be able to con-
duct a staff training program which, depending on the equip-
ment of the group, would place emphasis upon the following:

(1) Development of skill in interviewing.

(2) Knowledge of service-connected problems peculiar to
veterans.

(3) Ability to understand and identify a wide range of
other personal and family problems.

(4) Detailed knowledge of the services available in the
community for each type of problem and of how these serv-
ices can be used.

(5) Procedures within the center itself.

Depending upon the community situation, the size of statt
required, and the resources of the agencies at least a part of
the initial interviewing staff may be loaned temporarily by
community agencies, but as rapidly as possible such a center
should be set up with its own budget and financing and its
own employed staff of interviewers.

Services of the Center

The services of the center with the exceptions noted later
should be limited to information and referral. Direct services,
including treatment, personal counseling, and advice, are
primarily the responsibility of the regular service agencies in
the community and ordinarily should not be rendered by the
center for the following reasons:

(1) They may duplicate and compete with other existing
Services.

(2) They may lead to a continuing “case load” which will

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divert time and attention from the basic information and te-
ferral services,

(3) They tend to transform the center into a “treatment”
agency with functions which narrow its program.

Services beyond information and referral such as direct
medical care, financial assistance and vocational, health and
personal counseling and the like, should therefore be the re-
sponsibility of appropriate service agencies.

A limited degree of counseling is, of course, involved in
giving information and in making referrals to service agencies.
Beyond this there may also be certain exceptional situations
in which direct counseling in the center may be found neces-
sary, particularly in small or rural communities where the
needed service does not exist outside the center. In some
communities, the distance or inaccessibility of a service
agency May raise a question as to the need or value of a
referral, particularly when the counseling required can be
completed satisfactorily in one visit to the center. There may
also be some acute or emergency problems requiring imme-
diate counseling preceding referral to an appropriate agency.

Where counseling in the center becomes necessary for one
of these reasons, it should be recognized as a service distinct
from the information and referral process, and entrusted to
special personnel trained in the appropriate field such as vo-
cational counseling or health counseling, or case work service.
These counselors should, if possible, be placed there by the
appropriate agencies. However, where such counseling is
undertaken by the center itself because of a lack in the com-
munity of the appropriate services, it should be done only in
conjunction with efforts in the larger social planning body to
develop the needed outside services in the community.

Although the information service centers may be organized
primarily for use by discharged servicemen and women, re-

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quests for service may come from others in the community,
beginning with members of the families of veterans, service-
men on furlough or members of their families, and from war
workers and other civilians who need the information the
center has to offer. In order to avoid the setting up of sev-
eral information centers performing the same functions in
the community, the veterans’ information service center
Should indicate a readiness to become, or to merge with, a
general community information center.

Arrangements with Cooperating Agencies

As early as possible in the development of a center, or in.
advance, the governing body should have a clear, written
understanding with each of the cooperating service agencies
covering such points as:

(1) The types of problems which may be referred to the
agency, based on the agency’s program and competence.

(2) The number of referrals which the agency can handle.

(3) The methods of referral to be used. There should be
agreement as to whether the center can accept an application
on behalf of the agency, or whether the veteran should be
referred to make his own application at the agency’s office,
or whether the center can promise that the agency will call
on the applicant. The National Committee on Service to
Veterans believes that the most desirable procedure would
probably be for the interviewer at the center to telephone
the agency at the conclusion of the interview with the veteran
and make an appointment for him with the agency.

Such arrangements should lead to more intelligent use of
the services of public and private agencies, avoiding the
necessity of refusals of service after referral or of the subse-
quent “passing on” of referrals from agency to agency. It
should be clear, however, that veterans are free to go directly

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SOEDTER VT O*CLlyV FLIAN

to any agency they choose, without going first to the center,
and that such personal applications may be referred directly
to another agency where such action is clearly appropriate.
The general purpose of the center would be to simplify rather
than complicate the use of community services.

The important point to remember is that the usefulness
of any centralized information and referral process will de-
pend primarily on the extent to which community services
and facilities are available in a cooperative program.

PAD ©

SECTION IV. THE RELATIONSHIP OF
COMMUNITY SERVICES TO THE
VETERANS’ PROGRAM

ALL types of community services will be necessary to the
work of information service centers in helping returning serv-
icemen and women make the transition from military to
civilian life. Many small communities have few organized
social agencies, but all communities have schools, churches,
civic organizations, and town or village centers whose active
members will willingly provide the necessary contacts and
services, sometimes through informal committees which rep-
resent their organizations. Larger communities have one or
more of the following types of agencies: a family service
agency, a Red Cross chapter, a United States Employment
Service office, a child care agency, a public welfare agency,
a Travelers Aid Society, a YMCA and YWCA, a YM-
YWHA, a Catholic agency or other type of community
center, and perhaps other health and welfare agencies.

All agencies and organizations interested in and equipped
to serve returning members of the armed forces (and war
workers) should work together in planning new services, in
expanding or adjusting established services, and in furthering
civilian understanding of the needs of and service provided
for returning veterans and war workers. The agencies can
provide a wide range of direct services and some will provide
more than one. Each should provide the type of services it is
most competent to give. Expansion of any agency’s services

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should be undertaken after conference with the representa- |

tive and responsible community planning body. New services
should be assigned by agreement to the agency best equipped
to provide the needed service.

All agencies will stress the importance of a natural and
friendly reception to returning servicemen and women. Re-
ferrals should be handled quickly and courteously and accu-
rate and up-to-date information about what services can be
provided should be readily available.

Counseling, Guidance, Case Work, and Other Services

Men and women will need heip ranging from friendly con-
versation with mature and intelligent workers to social case
work and counseling and guidance services dealing with per-
sonal problems. Agencies must be cautioned to deal with
problems only in the area of their own competence. Inter-
viewers should be carefully selected and trained. Where well-
equipped guidance workers and case workers are available,
only they should attempt to provide the more skilled profes-

sional service required for complicated personal problems. —

Frequently, the services of physicians or psychiatrists are
needed.

Some returning service people will need places to live.
Room registries of reasonably priced rooms in homes, clubs,
and hotels should be maintained at accessible places in the
community. Lists of houses and apartments should be avail-
able. YMCA’s and YWCA’s, YM-YWHA’s, and some other
community agencies provide housing facilities.

A job will be a first necessity for many returning veterans.
The Veterans Personnel Division of the Selective Service Sys-
tem is charged with the legal responsibility of returning dis-
charged servicemen to their old jobs. The United States Em-

ployment Service of the War Manpower Commission is re-

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SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN

sponsible for helping veterans secure employment in new
jobs. Other community agencies should not attempt to usurp
or to duplicate these functions but may find appropriate ways
to supplement such services.

Military life will have provided strong group attachments
for many men. But the “old crowd” will have disappeared for
many who return. Well-planned, varied group activities can
help renew old friendships and establish new ones.

Many veterans will have developed new interests while in
service at camps and posts, in hospitals, in Red Cross and
USO clubs. Opportunities to pursue hobby interests, the
crafts, or the arts will appeal to many returning men and
women. At community centers and in the community’s
schools, opportunities can be provided to resume interrupted
school work and to seek new training. Formal education for
many veterans will be furthered by governmental assistance
for tuition and living expenses, but guidance on educational
plans may be necessary. Discussion groups and forums, classes
in vocational and cultural subjects will attract some.

Churches of all faiths can help many returning men and
women reestablish civilian habits of worship and service and
to express rediscovered interest in religion. The resources of
religious fellowship, of assistance in achieving a philosophy
built on religious principles should be readily available.

In all these ways agencies in the community can take a
part in helping returning service people and war workers
make the necessary, and for many, difficult transition to
civilian and postwar living.

#4223016

SECTION V. FINANCING LOCAL
SERVICES

THE financing of auxiliary local services for returning vet-

erans will probably follow the usual local community pattern —

for financing community services.

In many small communities the expense will be small. In-
formation service centers themselves may be quite informal,
with headquarters provided without charge in a municipal
building, in the headquarters of a community agency, or in

the office or home of a committee chairman. The services of |

interviewers and other workers, including clerical assistants,
may be provided without cost by interested organizations or
by the individual workers in the initial stages of the service.
Wherever possible, however, funds should be available to
employ paid staff for such centers.

No federal funds have been appropriated to finance infor- — |

mation service centers, but in some sections state, city, or

county funds may be made available. A combination of pub- —
lic and private funds may be secured in some communities. —

Both the information service centers and any necessary ex-
pansion of related community services can properly be
financed through Community War Chests. The regular local
community procedures should be followed in requesting such

consideration from the Community War Chest. A specific

budget should be formulated, including estimates of necessary

expenditures and income before presentation to Community —

War Chests.
- 224 -

SECTION VI. BUILDING PUBLIC
UNDERSTANDING

VETERANS are already the most important news item in
the national scene, short of the war itself, The problem now
is not the amount of publicity, but rather the kind of pub-
licity that will help toward meeting veterans’ needs as ade-
quately and in as orderly a way as possible. ‘The importance
of what is said and how it is said cannot be overrated because
publicity will influence the attitudes of the general commu-
nity, the veteran’s family, his employer, his associates, and
himself.

The tone in any publicity about community resources for
the returning veterans should be warm but matter-of-fact. It
is a perfectly natural situation that in a group of men who
have been away from home for a long time and have been
in unfamiliar places and circumstances, even if they have not
seen actual combat, there will be some who will have special
needs when they return. Most of the men, however, will take
their places in the community where they left off and it
should not be assumed that every veteran will have special
problems.

When an information service center is set up, or any type
of service for returning veterans is developed, the newspapers
will welcome stories and pictures. There will be little trouble
in getting the service publicized, because it is news, and “hot”
news. Even before a service is set up, the consideration of the
veterans’ needs by a representative local committee is news.

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Enough of this kind of news has already been published,

however, to indicate that there are great dangers to be
avoided in it. Chief among these, in the initial planning
stages, is the “Veterans Seen as Big Problem” type of head-
line and story. A great many newspaper stories printed so far
could not fail to lead the community to view with alarm, and
with not a little confusion, the prospect of hundreds of khaki-
shirted veterans coming home with “problems.” It is this
kind of publicity which, while it may arouse a community

to action, does not always stimulate them to calm and con-—

certed planning. Only too well do we know of the mushroom-
ing of poorly planned, competing services resulting from un-
wise and hysterical publicity.

A form which this hysteria has been taking in a number of
places is an uncoordinated flood of publicity from all kinds

of agencies and organizations seeming to compete for the op- _

portunity to serve the veteran. Sometimes these articles ignore
the plans of the government and other agencies, giving the
impression that the single agency for which they speak offers
the only solution to the veterans’ problems. To the general

public and to the veteran himself these conflicting claims —

present a very confused picture of community resources.
Even when other plans are recognized, publicity describing
the work of a specific kind of agency often tends to over-
emphasize the particular aspect of the veterans’ needs with
which that agency is prepared to deal. It would be unfortu-
nate, for example, for a mental hygiene agency to describe its
services to the psychoneurotic in such a way that the casual
reader would assume that most veterans will have psychiatric
problems.

It is not necessary that the entire publicity effort in a com-
munity be done by one person or one staff. As a matter of
fact, it is highly desirable that the publicity resources of all

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agencies be used, because the job is such a large one. It is
necessary, however, to coordinate publicity plans on a com-
munity-wide basis so that the publicity of each individual or-
ganization will be a proper and proportionate part of the
total picture.

There is a regrettable tendency on the part of some agen-
cies which are not set up to serve the veteran adequately, or
whose programs provide only a minor service to him, to over-
play that service in their publicity as a means of getting pub-
lic attention. Agencies should not use the returning veteran
as the theme of their publicity or fund-raising campaigns un-
less services to him are in truth the theme of their programs
also.

Once an agency’s plan of services for the returning veteran
is clear, the agency wants to make those services known to
the veteran and wants to make them known in a way that
will make him feel that he is being welcomed back into the
community with pleasure, without sentimentality, and with-
out a patronizing, or embarrassing over-solicitousness about
his needs and problems. ‘The most common medium through
which agencies over the country are considering doing this
job of telling the veteran what is available to him in the com-
munity is the directory type of booklet. It is not possible,
however, to say much about any one service in a directory
which covers all of them. Many individual agencies are,
therefore, considering the possibility of distributing through
information service centers or other central sources fuller
statements covering their own services. Even when this is
done, however, some balance must be maintained, so that
one service, by the amount of its publicity, does not give a
false impression of the prevalence of the problem in which
it 1s interested. Only material which is approved by the center
should be distributed there.

© 22]

DOLD TER ThOOG FV TE PAN

It is difficult to get much warmth and readability into a
directory, and the parts of the directory which are the most
difficult to write are those that deal with services for personal
problems. It is hard, in a line or two, to define the services
of a case work agency, for example, except to those who are
already familiar with them and who will know immediately
what is meant by “personal problems.” Most of the men will
not know what kinds of problems a case work agency is pre-
pared to help with and the writer of the directory section
dealing with this type of agency must either be completely
frank, using such phrases as “If you are having trouble with
your wife,” or content himself with describing family prob-
lems in generalities, which sometimes still leaves the veteran
in the dark about what is meant. To strike a happy medium,
a balance between the generalization and the too bald listing
of distressing personal problems, requires a great deal of skill
but is worth the effort.

If the workers in an information service center are thor-
oughly familiar with the types of service available in the
“personal problems” category, then they will be able to inter-
pret these services when they interview a man who seems to
be in need of them. This person-to-person interpretation has
the great advantage of reaching a specialized audience,
whereas printed material for general distribution describing
specific kinds of “personal problems” reaches men who do
not have the problems and may be puzzled by the apparent
assumption that because they are veterans they must have
problems. In any material of this kind for general distribu-
tion, there should be the implication that probably the vet-
eran will settle his own problems satisfactorily, but that if by
any chance he wants information and assistance, it is avail-
able to him.

Of course, not all publicity directed to the men themselves

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will be done through directories, booklets, or direct inter-
views. Some publicity will reach them through posters, news-
papers, radio, and through discussions in various meetings
where veterans are the audience. Very important will be the
interpretation done by board members, volunteers, and other
workers on committees which are working on the services
themselves. The principles outlined here, however, apply to
all publicity done anywhere and by any medium when it is
directed to the men who are the potential users of the serv-
Ices.

Perhaps the most important responsibility which must be
faced by those concerned with the speedy and happy read-
justment of the veteran to civilian life is the responsibility of
helping the community to know how to treat the newly re-
turned veteran. In considering this job of “attitude educa-
tion’ in communities, it must be realized that thousands of
men for whom the war is already over are returning to the
community now and that a greater proportion of these men
have problems of physical or mental readjustment than will
those who come home after victory. Unfortunately, the
American public has not developed an adequate understand-
ing of the factors in mental health or the psychological strains
in the readjustment of the physically disabled. Red Cross
hospital workers overseas report that the most prevalent fear
of the disabled man who is returning to civilian life is that
his family and his community will not understand. He is
afraid of too many questions, and afraid that people will
stare at him on the streets or tactlessly offer too much help.
The veteran who looks hale and hearty even though disabled
is disturbed about the way in which he may be received.
Communities often fail to understand the veteran who, in his
insecurity, takes refuge in overaggressiveness. Well-meaning,
warmhearted, American communities do not want to make

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mistakes with these returning men, but they need help in
knowing how to avoid mistakes.

There are dozens of ways in which to tackle the job of
“attitude education.” Already several towns are having meet-
ings of social workers and health workers to discuss the way
veterans feel and want to be treated. One large eastern city
has successful and well-attended courses for employers of re-
turned veterans. Organizations whose members are older girls
have been sponsoring discussions and club meetings to con-
sider the ways in which the girls, who will be the natural
companions of the returning young men, shall conduct them-
selves toward helping the boys to feel at home and secure.
Radio “soap operas,” short stories in women’s magazines,
authoritative articles by psychiatrists and others in the na-
tional magazines are all doing their part toward teaching the
community to help the veteran with his readjustment wisely.
Many of these articles can be reprinted locally as a means
of calling the community’s attention to them. Local radio
stations*will be interested in programs which will take up this
important subject. One community, for example, reports
plans for a local radio series of panel discussions, using psy-
chiatrists and workers from a nearby military hospital as
speakers on this newsworthy subject. Women’s clubs, church
groups, men’s service clubs, and all kinds of local organiza-
tions should be considered as possible avenues through which
qualified people in the community can help to educate citi-
zens about the veteran.

If, in this “attitude education,’ our matter-of-factness is
lost and “problems” are dwelt on too dramatically, there is a
danger that by the time the general demobilization comes
our communities may be convinced that veterans not only
have problems but that they are problems. The job of “atti-
tude education” must be done calmly and soundly. After all,

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the veterans also read the papers and listen to the radio. A
good criterion for whether or not publicity is sufficiently dig-
nified and matter-of-fact is to consider what may be the re-
turned veteran’s reaction to the material. As a matter of fact,
asking returned veterans to cooperate in preparing publicity,
letting them see the material, or asking them to attend some
of the meetings where it will be easy and natural for them,
is an excellent way of being sure that the publicity is on the
right track.

» 29 eae

MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL COMMIT-
TEE ON SERVICE TO VETERANS UNDER
THE AUSPICES OF THE NATIONAL SG
CIAL WORK COUNCIL

Rosert E. Bonpy, Chairman
Administrator, Services to the Armed Forces, American
National Red Cross

Mrs. Sature E. Bricutr
Executive Secretary, National Publicity Council for
Health and Welfare Services, Inc.

Lyman S. Forp
Director, Health and Welfare Planning, Community
Chests and Councils, Inc.

Davin H. Hoisroox
Secretary, National Social Work Council

Ray JOHNS
Director, Department of Operations, Continental
United States, United Service Organizations, Inc.

Roy E. JouNnson
Chief, Area Services, Services to the Armed Forces,
American National Red Cross

Louis KRAFT

Executive Director, National Jewish Welfare Board
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Harry L. Lurie
Executive Director, Council of Jewish Federations and
Welfare Funds

Miss Berroa McCay
General Director, National Travelers Aid Association

Rr. Rev. Joun O’Grapy
Secretary, National Conference of Catholic Charities

Howarp L. Russevy
Director, American Public Welfare Association

J. Epwarp Sprout
Executive for Program Service, National Council of
Y.M.C.A.’s; Chairman, National Education-Recreation
Council

GerorceE S. Stevenson, M.D.
Medical Director, National Committee for Mental
Hygiene

Linton B. Swirt

General Director, Family Welfare Association of
America

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